During my childhood and teenage years, through the late 1980s, outdoor milk vending machines were everywhere in Buffalo’s neighborhoods.even deep in residential areas. There were a few within a five minute walk of my house.
Here’s a photo of a typical old-school Buffalo milk machine.
Was the outdoor milk machine one of those oddball “Buffalo things,” or were they in other parts of the country too? Are they still around?
Nope, never seen one, and I’m almost 54. Either this was pretty much a local or regional thing, or they never showed up in the south in a big way.
For that matter, home delivery of milk seems to be pretty much a thing of the past. Is this still done anywhere?
We used to get milk delivered through the mid 70s. I forget when exactly it stopped, but definitely by 1980.
I’ve never seen a milk vending machine like the one pictured, even when traveling to Rochester. So, I vote that it’s a “Buffalo thing”.
Still have milk delivered. He also delivers bread, butter, yogurt, other staples.
We also have Simon Delivers, which is a complete grocery store, you order online, and they deliver your groceries. I have done that once, but I’m too cheap in general.
There was one outside a grocer’s/catering business in my home town in central NJ in the 1960s. Even then it wasn’t common, though. I remember my uncle saying that he was going out to buy a quart of milk in the convenience store-less early 1960s, well after the closing hours of supermarkets (which weren’t within walking distance, anyway), and wondering what he was talking about. And we walked a block and a half to an outdoor vending machine. I thought it was great! But it was the only one I knew of – every other milk vending machine in town was indoors.
Oberweiss Dairy still makes milk deliveries in the Chicago area. Their product line includes, besides the expected dairy products, pizza, meats, and pies.
In the 1960s, there was a milk-vending machine outside my building in suburban Queens.
Now there’s no milk machine anymore, but there is a gigantic supermarket where the milk-vending machine used to be.
Wow, here in Merrie England you can order most everyting online for delivery PDQ at no charge.
As for milkmen, yes they still deliver here, again you can get all manner of dairy products plus bread, spuds, juices and even cakes.
At Christmas you can even order your turkey from good 'ol Stan the milkman 
when I was a kid in the 60s, we had milk delivered to our home. The milkmen left it in an insulated milkbox, about a fot by a foot. You could get chocolate milk and orange drink and other stuff from them as well.
We stopped using them not because of the greater availability from convenience stores (expensive) and 24 hour supermarkets (you still had to go out for the milk), but because they started leaving the milk late at night instead of early in the morning, and by the time you got to it 9even with the insulated box) it was starting to go bad.
I’ve seen milk-vending machines before, but never year-round-outdoor ones. In Maine, they lay fallow (no, that isn’t the right phrase, thanks for asking) six months of the year because once milk freezes, it’s just plain awful, even for cooking. The machine in the OP’s picture doesn’t look as if it’s big enough to hold much milk and keep it cool in the summer and keep it from freezing in the winter. Especially if it came (as it looks) dispensed in glass bottles, which I’ve never seen in an outdoor dispenser.
The milk was actually dispensed in quart cartons. The machines operated year round, so I’m guessing they were heated during the winter.
I’ve lived in Maryland all my life. I’ve never seen or heard of (prior to this thread, of course) milk vending machines.
If you enter “outdoor milk vending machines” on as search engine you’ll get quite a few hits. Here’s one:
http://www.milkdelivers.org/vending/equipment.cfm
I can’t access the one that talks about its instaled heater (presumably for winter). They brag about cooling, and safeguards to prevent selling past the expiration date.
I’m not sure a picture of Austin Powers is going to do any good, though.
I see the Crescent Ridge truck every morning at 5:15 when I am out running.
Never did see a milk vending machine, though.
This was nothing like those, though. The milk machines in Buffalo didn’t dispense awesome!!!1!! single servings of X-TREME!!!1!!one!! chocolate milk; these were boring quart cartons from a local dairy. You dropped quarters into a coin slot, pushed hard on a lever, and a quart would drop into a tray covered by a heavy insulated door. The machines looked primitive and utilitarian, nothing like the vending machines of the 1970s and 1980s. They were almost never set up alonside pop/soda vending machines; they stood alone, either next to a corner store, or a house that straddled a streetcorner.
I have never seen a milk machine, I grew up in PA.
I was wondering this the other day. We had home delivery at least into the 70s, but I have not seen it in years. I was watching Dead Like Me and the milk guy bought it in one of the episodes and I thought that it was unlikely because they simply don’t deliver milk anymore.
Neither did the one I spoke of in post #6 – tyhat was drab army green with a slot for the coins and a space where the milk came out. I just wanted to show that there still are such beasts even today, although I admit I haven’t seen one outdoors.
There were several outdoor milk vending machines, in the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, when I was growing up…The cost was 50 cents (2 quarters only) for a half gallon waxed carton. These machines were in place, through out the 1960’s, and all disappeared around 1973.
There was one in my hometown (1000 people in southern MN) during the 1960’s. not sure when it went away. We had home delivery of milk, and if we ran out between deliveries, one of us was sent down to the ‘iron cow’ to pick up a half-gallon carton. I remember occasionally getting a frozen container, probably in the winter (although I couldn’t swear to that).
