About us
Cincinnati born.
Dad run.
Always stocked.
Upper Decker Vending Company is an owner-operated 21+ vending business built for Cincinnati nightlife. We are two dads with day-job discipline, a route we drive ourselves, and a strong opinion that a vending machine in a good bar should look like it belongs there.
Why we started
It started as a running joke.
Everybody who has spent a night out in this city has watched it happen: somebody at the table runs out of pouches, decides to make a quick gas-station run, and the night bends around that decision. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes the group leaves with them.
Bar owners have known this forever and had no good fix for it. Selling nicotine behind the bar means inventory, licensing, and one more thing for a bartender to card for on a Saturday at eleven. So most places just eat the loss.
Upper Decker exists to take that entire problem off the bar and put it on a wall. We buy the machine, carry the licensing, verify the ID at the point of sale, and keep it stocked. The venue provides a wall and an outlet, and gets paid for it.
The name is a joke. The execution isn't — and that contrast is the whole point of the company.
Serving Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Our machines ship pre-assembled from an Ohio warehouse, and our route is driven by the people who own the company.
The founders
Two names on the door.
Jake Boyles
Co-Founder
Runs placement, machine build-out and the technology side of the network — remote monitoring, pricing, and the software that tells us a machine needs service before your staff has to tell us.
Brandon Rader
Co-Founder
Runs venue partnerships and route operations. He's the one who walks in, reads the room, and figures out where a machine actually belongs in your space instead of where it technically fits.
How we operate
What owner-operated buys you.
Confident, not corporate
You get a phone number that reaches a founder, not a ticket queue in another time zone. If something's wrong with the machine in your bar, one of us answers.
Owner-operated, not small-time
Two guys run this, and it shows in the response time — not in the equipment, the branding or the compliance work. Local should mean faster, not sloppier.
Always stocked
An empty machine is worse than no machine. Remote monitoring exists so that restocking is our problem and never becomes a conversation you have to start.
Cincinnati born · Dad run
Come meet us in your bar.
We'd rather talk in your room than over email. Tell us when you're slow and we'll stop by.
owners@upperdeckervending.com · 513-593-2378