What’s a milk machine, Dad?

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

I get ridiculously happy when I find a photo of a milk machine, like this one on Ridge Road in Lackawanna from 1989. The machine was likely owned and served by Beres’ Dairy, which was on Abbott Rd. between Leonard and Meadowbrook.

It’s not the clearest or the highest resolution photo around, but isn’t it amazing to think about how milk vending machines were everywhere around the City of Buffalo?

Sometime soon, the memory of these once ubiquitous devices will be reduced to overly-nostalgic posts like this one, which will also recall the orange drink which sometimes would get kicked out the machine a little bit frozen, just like the milk.

Broadway & Person was the typical Buffalo corner in the 1970s, with a gin mill and milk machine.

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Steve Cichon

Steve Cichon writes about Buffalo’s pop culture history. His stories of Buffalo's past have appeared more than 1600 times in The Buffalo News. He's a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. Since the earliest days of the internet, Cichon's been creating content celebrating the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. The 25-year veteran of Buffalo radio and television has written five books and curates The Buffalo Stories Archives-- hundreds of thousands of books, images, and audio/visual media which tell the stories of who we are in Western New York.