{"id":274080,"date":"2026-08-28T17:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T17:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274080\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T17:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T17:24:09","slug":"the-mystery-behind-pittsburghs-missing-star-wars-vending-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274080\/","title":{"rendered":"The mystery behind Pittsburgh’s missing Star Wars vending machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disturbance in the Force: Iconic Star Wars Phantom Menace vending machine vanishes in Pittsburgh<\/p>\n

\"RaquelPITTSBURGH \u2014<\/p>\n

This is not the vending machine you are looking for. <\/p>\n

When you think of iconic Star Wars memorabilia, you may not think of a vending machine sitting next to a fire department in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

However, the disappearance of the 1999 Star Wars Phantom Menace-themed vending machine is causing a disturbance in the Force for the Steel City. <\/p>\n

While the original vending machine in Mt. Washington has gone missing, an apparent homemade replacement has been left behind. <\/p>\n

“It looks like a homemade art project, but it has a little character to it. One thing I did notice though, is (the vending machine) used to have Pepsi in it, and now it has Coca-Cola,” Bill Bara said.<\/p>\n

The fire department, which owns the original machine, said the money it generated benefited the firehouse.<\/p>\n

People in the area said they hope the disappearance is just a prank and that whoever took the machine will return it.<\/p>\n

In the words of Jar Jar Binks, \u201cHow wude.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disturbance in the Force: Iconic Star Wars Phantom Menace vending machine vanishes in Pittsburgh PITTSBURGH \u2014 This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2088,115232,4676,3627,15305,7778,6294,7359,115236,115233,39774,33779,115237,15712,115238,28,523,115234,115235,73,75,74,31895,80736,10373,45890],"class_list":["post-274080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-area","tag-bill-bara","tag-coca-cola","tag-disappearance","tag-disturbance","tag-fire-department","tag-firehouse","tag-force","tag-homemade-replacement","tag-jar-jar-binks","tag-machine","tag-memorabilia","tag-missing-machine","tag-mt-washington","tag-original-vending-machine","tag-pennsylvania","tag-people","tag-pepsi","tag-phantom-menace","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-prank","tag-star-wars","tag-steel-city","tag-vending-machine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}