Y2K panic was cresting when Pennsylvania’s most famous Pepsi machine arrived on the scene in 1999. Bill Clinton was president. Napster was nascent. And Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was about to become the biggest movie in the world.
That film ended a 16-year drought for fans of the franchise. It’s also the only reason we’re talking about the Pepsi machine now.
Located outside a fire station in Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington neighborhood, this particular soda/pop machine has become an unlikely destination amid the likeliest of tourist draws — it’s a few blocks from one of the city’s famed funiculars and overlooks.
What makes this machine so rare, and the reason people keep coming from places like Florida to see it, is the Phantom Menace tie-in — pictured above — that hasn’t changed since the last millennium.
It is frozen in time. A relic. An anachronism. A Pepsi portal to the past that predates the first iPhone by nearly a decade.
Interest has grown over the years, which have seen more selfies posted to social media, more media outlets picking up the story, and what I can only assume is the highly unusual promotion of a vending machine by local tourism officials.
“My Partners and I Made A Holy Pilgrimage Tonight,” Redditor Jordon Knisely posted in 2022 alongside a photo of him kneeling before the machine and its neon nighttime glow.
The actual drinks inside may vary. The firemen of Engine 27 next door, who took the machine over after Pepsi stopped servicing it, have for years filled it with Faygo, the bargain-bin libation of choice for another intensely devoted subculture.
That changed in 2022 when Pepsi delivered a year’s supply of its official nectars in conjunction with Star Wars Day on the fourth of May. Pepsi did not respond to emails asking if it planned to do the same this year. And on two occasions this week, the machine was sold out completely.
No Pepsi or Faygo to speak of. I took my money to a store a few doors down and bought a soda there. It wasn’t the same, though, and I drank it by the curb while frowning and bundling up against the wind.
But the soda isn’t the point, is it?
“They don’t even buy pop. They sit in front of it and pose,” one firefighter told the Post-Gazette last year with a laugh. “It gets a lot of Star Wars fans.”
No one knows exactly how many.
VisitPittsburgh, the city’s tourism office, wouldn’t wager a guess, but President and CEO Jerad Bachar counts “even this very unique Pepsi machine” among the city’s attractions now.
Maybe it’s the science of nostalgia. Most likely, it’s the power of Star Wars and Reddit karma.
For the record, there are identical machines out there.
They’ve turned up in Ohio, Iowa, Canada, and even Chambersburg, three hours to the east of Pittsburgh, where the local mall’s general manager, Robert Woodring, confirmed to PA Local this week that “Yes, it’s still here, but I don’t know about people posing for photos [with it].”
Some already have, and it’s safe to assume more will follow.
—Colin Deppen, PA Local editor | 
