Harrison Baer always dreamed of owning a business, but he didn’t always know what it would be. Originally from Chicago, he moved to Cincinnati in 2022 after graduating from Hillsdale College with a degree in political economy, where his business idea came to him in the form of a vending machine.
“It started with the premise of, ‘What if every time you clicked a button, you had no idea what drink was going to come out?’” Baer recalls. “Now that I’m finding out it’s a scalable business, it’s like, ‘oh, this is actually smart. You can grow on this.’”
Each Mystery Machine has more than 1,000 drinks from around the world, dispensed at random. First, you choose one of seven categories: original, kids, diet and sugar-free, caffeine-free, energy, sparkling drink, and international (the most popular option among patrons). There are also three predetermined options: Coke, Diet Coke, and RAIN spring water, Mystery Machine’s first sponsor…