Pittsburgh Star Wars vending machine with cult following mysteriously replaced

A Mt. Washington vending machine that has become a pilgrimage for Star Wars fans is missing. People in the neighborhood want to know where it is and where it went. 

It may not be Order 66, but there is a disturbance in the Force. A vending machine still sits at the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire Station 27 on Mt. Washington, but it's a painted copy with similar artwork and not the original. 

"I've seen a lot of crazy stuff up here on Mt. Washington, but I've never seen anybody mess with this vending machine until this week," Mt. Washington neighbor Stephen Crnkovich said.

Neighbors on Mt. Washington have no clue where the machine went. It has a cult following at this point. "Star Wars: Episode I" came out in 1999. The promotional vending machine has been sitting on Virginia Avenue for almost 30 years.

"The Star Wars Pepsi vending machine and the Terrible Towel are one and the same, all right?" Crnkovich said. "You just don't mess with them."

Back in 2022, Pepsi donated $10,000 to the fire station and restocked it with a year's worth of pop. A TikToker with close to a million followers on the app is getting the finger pointed at him, as he made comments about wanting to take it. So far, there have been no current posts about whether he's the source of its disappearance. A post claiming responsibility that was making the rounds on social media isn't available anymore.

Hannah Wood couldn't believe it as she saw a crew moving what she thinks is the new machine into place.

"I'm not even a huge Star Wars fan, and honestly, I thought it was really cool," she said. "It felt very nostalgic to have something like that in our community."

The call for help to find the original machine isn't going out to Obi-Wan Kenobi, but rather Jedi in a system a little closer to home.

"We gotta get a task force of all the yinzer legends," Crnkovich said. "I mean, we need Joe Manganiello on the case, Michael Keaton, Mike McCarthy, Wiz. I need Mikey and Big Bob."

KDKA reached out to Pittsburgh Public Safety and the content creator accused of saying he wanted it.