I've known people that have had them, and they're nice to have, there is an added cost that they don't mention in the part of the story where they discuss the economics of it all. Usually, people use older beat-up refrigerators to make them. Those old refrigerators are pretty energy-inefficient, and depending on where you live and your energy costs, you might be spending $10 a month or so just for electricity to run the thing. That needs to be added to the cost when figuring out the economics of it.

At a place where I used to work, we used to have a beer vending machine. Somebody found an old beat-up (but fully funtional) soft drink bottle vending machine (it was an ugly yellow "Squirt" machine) at a garage sale or something and brought it in to work. It was the really old kind that had the vertical glass door with vertically-aligned rows of bottles, where you would grab a bottle after you put in your money and pull out the bottle, and the next one would drop into place. We gave a few bucks to guy who worked for the Pepsi distributor who came in to fill the Pepsi machine and knew how the thing worked, and he reset the coinbox thing so that the price was 85 cents or something.

Then we filled it with premium beers (plus we would fill a couple of rows with Bud or Coors or whatever for those folks who insisted on drinking those pisswater beers). When it got low, we would unlock the coinbox and clean it out, then take all the quarters, nickels and dimes down to the liquor store and buy more beer to fill it again. It was a socialist-style, non-profit thing--we bought the best beer we could afford with the money we got out of the machine, and nobody pocketed any. There were some rules, like that there was no whining allowed if it stole your money, and all extra money would just go to buying better beer the next time.

But it was pretty cool. There was always an ice cold beer available, and we never had to worry about anyone not paying their share for beer since it was pay-as-you-go. The beer machine became one of the things people liked the most about the place. I'm surprised that more employers don't do that.

no pictures :(

$350 is half the cost of a new sears kegerator of the type RepoMan has pictured. I may have to steal dad's pickup and take a trip up to Mass.

Add a keg of Hop Devil and I'm set.

Go Beer!

I is very impressed. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

GSpot writes: I will be the most popular man on the block when Armegeddon comes.

I'll bring the pretzels.

Beer sucks.

duck and cover