Automat: Difference between revisions
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{{short description|Type of fast food restaurant}} | {{short description|Type of fast food restaurant}} | ||
{{Other uses}} | {{Other uses}} | ||
[[File:StollwerckAutomatenrestaurant1896.jpg|thumb|The first automat at 13 Leipziger Straße in [[Berlin]], Germany<ref>[ | [[File:StollwerckAutomatenrestaurant1896.jpg|thumb|The first automat at 13 Leipziger Straße in [[Berlin]], Germany<ref>[https://www.friese-meckenheim.de/maxsielaff/automat-rest-1.html Bernardo Friese, grandson of Max Sielaff]</ref><ref name="Automat-Restaurants" />)]] | ||
[[File:Meal ticket - shokkenki - May 13 2022 01-38PM.jpeg|thumb|upright|A food ticket machine in [[Japan]] in 2022]] | [[File:Meal ticket - shokkenki - May 13 2022 01-38PM.jpeg|thumb|upright|A food ticket machine in [[Japan]] in 2022]] | ||
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===Germany=== | ===Germany=== | ||
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-25350-0001, Berlin, Alexanderplatz, Automatenrestaurant, Nacht.jpg|thumb|upright|An automat in East Berlin, 1954]] | [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-25350-0001, Berlin, Alexanderplatz, Automatenrestaurant, Nacht.jpg|thumb|upright|An automat in East Berlin, 1954]] | ||
The first documented automat was [[Quisisana]], which opened in 1895 in [[Berlin]], Germany.<ref name="Smith Oliver 2015 p. 24">{{cite book | last1=Smith | first1=A.F. | last2=Oliver | first2=G. | title=Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover's Companion to New York City | publisher=Oxford University Press, Incorporated | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-19-939702-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NNieCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 | access-date=June 15, 2017 | page=24}}</ref> In 1904, a similar restaurant opened in [[Breslau]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abebooks.com/paper-collectibles/Postkarte-Carte-Postale-33547134-Breslau-Niederschlesien/30336967514/bd|title = Postkarte Carte Postale 33547134 Breslau Niederschlesien Restaurant Automat Breslau Niederschlesien: Manuscript / Paper Collectible | Versandhandel Boeger}}</ref> | The first documented automat was [[Quisisana]], which opened in 1895 in [[Berlin]], Germany.<ref name="Smith Oliver 2015 p. 24">{{cite book | last1=Smith | first1=A.F. | last2=Oliver | first2=G. | title=Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover's Companion to New York City | publisher=Oxford University Press, Incorporated | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-19-939702-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NNieCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 | access-date=June 15, 2017 | page=24}}</ref> In 1904, a similar restaurant opened in what was then [[Breslau]], German Silesia (the city is now Wrocław, Polish Silesia).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abebooks.com/paper-collectibles/Postkarte-Carte-Postale-33547134-Breslau-Niederschlesien/30336967514/bd|title = Postkarte Carte Postale 33547134 Breslau Niederschlesien Restaurant Automat Breslau Niederschlesien: Manuscript / Paper Collectible | Versandhandel Boeger}}</ref> | ||
=== Japan === | === Japan === | ||
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[[File:20200729 0818-0820 CHESTNUT.jpg|thumb|upright|818 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, the site of the first U.S. Horn & Hardart Automat, pictured with original automat signage in July 2020.]] | [[File:20200729 0818-0820 CHESTNUT.jpg|thumb|upright|818 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, the site of the first U.S. Horn & Hardart Automat, pictured with original automat signage in July 2020.]] | ||
The first automat in the United States was opened by food services company [[Horn & Hardart]] on June 12, 1902, at 818 Chestnut St.<ref name="Automat-Restaurants" /> in [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]].<ref>"[ | The first automat in the United States was opened by food services company [[Horn & Hardart]] on June 12, 1902, at 818 Chestnut St.<ref name="Automat-Restaurants" /> in [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]].<ref>"[https://www.14to42.net/36street2.html Horn & Hardart Automat, 968 6th Ave. between 35th & 36th Sts. (1986)]", 36th Street, [http://www.14to42.net/ New York City Signs -- 14th to 42nd Street].</ref> Inspired by Max Sielaff's automat restaurants in [[Berlin]], they were among the first 47 restaurants (and the first outside of Europe) to receive patented vending machines from Sielaff's Berlin factory.<ref name="Automat-Restaurants">[https://archive.today/20150316092501/http://cdm16038.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p268001coll12/id/6426/rec/58 Automat-Restaurants – '''AUTOMAT''' GmbH, 23 Spenerstrasse, Berlin, N.W. :: Trade Catalogs and Pamphlets] - [[OCLC]]</ref> The automat spread to [[New York City]]<ref name="Automat-Restaurants" /> in 1912,<ref name="thngofpa">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eOJNAAAAIBAJ&pg=6535%2C4112657 |work=Free Lance-Star |location=Fredericksburg, Virginia |agency=Associated Press |title=Automats become a thing of the past in New York |date=December 31, 1977 |page=12}}</ref> and gradually became part of [[popular culture]] in northern [[industrial cities]]. | ||
Originally, the machines in U.S. automats only accepted [[Nickel (United States coin)|nickels]].<ref name="Lui">{{cite web | Originally, the machines in U.S. automats only accepted [[Nickel (United States coin)|nickels]].<ref name="Lui">{{cite web | ||
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==Further reading== | ==Further reading== | ||
* {{cite book |last1=Diehl |first1=Lorraine B. |last2=Hardart |first2=Marianne |title=The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece |date=November 19, 2002 |publisher=[[Clarkson Potter (publisher)|Clarkson_Potter]] |location=New York |isbn=978-0-609-61074-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RpnbAAAAMAAJ |language=en |oclc=1298810185}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Diehl |first1=Lorraine B. |last2=Hardart |first2=Marianne |title=The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece |url= | * {{cite book |last1=Diehl |first1=Lorraine B. |last2=Hardart |first2=Marianne |title=The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece |date=November 19, 2002 |publisher=[[Clarkson Potter (publisher)|Clarkson_Potter]] |location=New York |isbn=978-0-609-61074-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RpnbAAAAMAAJ |language=en |oclc=1298810185}}<ref>{{cite web |last1=Diehl |first1=Lorraine B. |last2=Hardart |first2=Marianne |title=The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece |url=https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random042/2001057805.html |website=Catalog |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |access-date=4 June 2022 |quote=Sample text for Library of Congress control number 2001057805}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Trufelman |first1=Avery |author1-link=Avery Trufelman |title=The Automat |url=https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-automat/ |website=[[99% Invisible]] |date=4 June 2019 |access-date=4 June 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Nonfiction Book Review: The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece by Marianne Hardart, Lorraine B. Diehl |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780609610749 |access-date=4 June 2022 |work=[[Publishers Weekly]] |date=1 November 2002}}</ref> | ||
* [https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/automatenrestaurants-kurbel-drehen-wurst-entnehmen-a-951231.html Automatic restaurants], [[Der Spiegel]] | * [https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/automatenrestaurants-kurbel-drehen-wurst-entnehmen-a-951231.html Automatic restaurants], [[Der Spiegel]] | ||
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080217185615/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/object_aug01.html/ Meet Me at the Automat] By Carolyn Hughes Crowley, [[Smithsonian]] | * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080217185615/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/object_aug01.html/ Meet Me at the Automat] By Carolyn Hughes Crowley, [[Smithsonian]] | ||
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111230004650/http://www.life.com/gallery/60231/in-praise-of-the-automat In Praise of the Automat] – slideshow by ''[[Life magazine]]'' | * [https://web.archive.org/web/20111230004650/http://www.life.com/gallery/60231/in-praise-of-the-automat In Praise of the Automat] – slideshow by ''[[Life magazine]]'' | ||
* [http://maxsielaff.de/ Sielaff Automaten Berlin] – Max Sielaff, Automat inventor website | * [http://maxsielaff.de/ Sielaff Automaten Berlin] – Max Sielaff, Automat inventor website | ||
* [https:// | * [https://theautomat.org/ Used and new Automats in the United States] | ||
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTqjO-dHTmE Doris Day at the Automat] in ''[[That Touch of Mink]]'' (1962) | * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTqjO-dHTmE Doris Day at the Automat] in ''[[That Touch of Mink]]'' (1962) | ||
* [http://www.numismatik-cafe.at/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3975 Token from Automaten cafe Quisisana, 57 Kärntner street, Vienna, Austria] | * [http://www.numismatik-cafe.at/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3975 Token from Automaten cafe Quisisana, 57 Kärntner street, Vienna, Austria] | ||
* [https://archive.today/20150316092501/http://cdm16038.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p268001coll12/id/6426/rec/58 Automat Restaurants :: Trade Catalogs and Pamphlets] - [[OCLC]] | * [https://archive.today/20150316092501/http://cdm16038.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p268001coll12/id/6426/rec/58 Automat Restaurants :: Trade Catalogs and Pamphlets] - [[OCLC]] | ||
* [ | * [https://blog.svd.se/mittstockholm/2013/11/08/automatrestauranger-for-over-100-ar-sedan/ Automat Restaurants – over 100 years ago – My Stockholm BLOG] | ||
{{Retail}} | {{Retail}} | ||
Latest revision as of 10:07, 20 December 2025
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "other uses".
An automat is a type of fast-food restaurant where food and drink are served through a vending machine, typically without waitstaff. The world's first automat, Quisisana, opened in Berlin, Germany in 1895.[3][4]
By country
Germany
The first documented automat was Quisisana, which opened in 1895 in Berlin, Germany.[5] In 1904, a similar restaurant opened in what was then Breslau, German Silesia (the city is now Wrocław, Polish Silesia).[6]
Japan
In Japan, in addition to vending machines that sell prepared food, many restaurants also use food ticket machines (Template:Langx). This process involves purchasing a meal ticket from a vending machine, which is then presented to a server who prepares and serves the meal.
Kaitenzushi restaurants, which serve sushi on conveyor belts, are also common in Japan.[7]
Netherlands
Automats (Template:Langx) provide a variety of typical Dutch fried fast food, such as frikandellen and croquettes, as well as hamburgers and sandwiches from vending machines which are back-loaded from a kitchen.
FEBO is the best-known chain of Dutch automats, with some outlets open 24 hours a day.[8]
United States
The first automat in the United States was opened by food services company Horn & Hardart on June 12, 1902, at 818 Chestnut St.[2] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[9] Inspired by Max Sielaff's automat restaurants in Berlin, they were among the first 47 restaurants (and the first outside of Europe) to receive patented vending machines from Sielaff's Berlin factory.[2] The automat spread to New York City[2] in 1912,[10] and gradually became part of popular culture in northern industrial cities.
Originally, the machines in U.S. automats only accepted nickels.[11] A cashier sat in a change booth in the center of the restaurant, behind a wide marble counter with five to eight rounded depressions. The diner would insert the required number of coins in a machine and then lift a window, hinged at the top, and remove the meal, which was usually wrapped in waxed paper. The kitchen was located behind the machines and used to replenish them from the rear.[12]
Automats were popular with a wide variety of celebrity patrons, including Walter Winchell and Irving Berlin. The New York automats were also popular with unemployed songwriters and actors. Playwright Neil Simon called automats "the Maxim's of the disenfranchised" in 1987.[13]
The automat was threatened by the arrival of fast food restaurants, which served food over the counter with more payment flexibility than traditional automats. By the 1970s, the automats' remaining appeal in their core urban markets was chiefly nostalgic. Another contributing factor to their demise was inflation, which caused an increase in food prices and made the use of coins inconvenient in a time before bill acceptors were common on vending equipment.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
At one time, there were 40 Horn & Hardart automats in New York City. The last one closed in 1991, when the company had converted most of its New York City locations into Burger King restaurants. At the time, customers had been noticing a decrease in the quality of the food.[13][14]
2000s US revivals
In an attempt to revive automats, a company called Bamn! opened a Dutch-style automat store in the East Village in New York City in 2006,[15] only to close three years later.[16] In 2015, another attempt to open an automat was made by a San Francisco company called Eatsa, which opened six automated restaurants in California, New York, and the District of Columbia, but they all closed by 2019. The company soon rebranded itself as Brightloom, and continue to sell automation technology to restaurants.
The COVID-19 pandemic inspired a new wave of automat revival attempts, aimed to adapt to the social distancing guidelines and the desire for contactless dining. Joe Scutellaro and Bob Baydale opened Automat Kitchen, which specialized in fresh food, in Jersey City's Newport Centre in early 2021;[17][18] however, it closed after one year of operation because of low foot traffic due to the pandemic.[19] Another automat chain, the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, opened in the East Village in 2021;[20] they opened a chain in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in December 2023.[21]
Rail transport
A form of the automat was used on some passenger trains. The Great Western Railway in the United Kingdom announced plans in December 1945 to introduce an automat on buffet cars.[22] Plans were delayed by impending nationalisation, but an automat was finally introduced on the Cambrian Coast Express in 1962.[23]
In the United States, the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced an automat between New York Penn Station, and Washington Union Station, in 1954.[24] Southern Pacific Railroad introduced automat buffet cars on the Coast Daylight and Sunset Limited in 1962. Amtrak converted four buffet cars to automats in 1985 for use on the Auto Train.
In Switzerland, the Bodensee–Toggenburg Bahn introduced automat buffet cars in 1987.[25]
With the advent of air travel and other forms of transportation, automats on trains became less popular and were eventually phased out. The last automat in use on a train in the United States was on the short-lived Lake Country Limited in 2001.
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An automat in Manhattan, New York City in 1936
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An automat in Manhattan's East Village, c. 2007[11]
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An automat at 1165 Sixth Avenue, New York City, in the 1930s.
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A Horn & Hardart postcard explaining how food was served in an automat, c. 1930s
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A Bamn! automat, 2006
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![An automat in Manhattan's East Village, c. 2007[11]](/wiki143/index.php?title=File:Bamn_Automat.png){kind=link}
See also
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- Automated convenience store
- Automated restaurant
- Automated retail
- Cafeteria
- Conveyor belt sushi
- FEBO
- Full-line vending
- Virtual restaurant
- Template:Annotated link
- Template:Annotated link
Further reading
- Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".[26][27][28]
- Automatic restaurants, Der Spiegel
- Meet Me at the Automat By Carolyn Hughes Crowley, Smithsonian
- Before Horn & Hardart: European automats
- The Automat, an east coast oasis
- "The Last Automat," by James T. Farrell (New York (magazine), May 14, 1979)
- Horst Prillinger Automaten restaurant Quisisana, Mariahilfer Straße 34 im 7, Vienna, Austria, 1972
- from Pohanka, Reinhard; Sinalco-Epoche kenne ich
- "The Sinalco Era – Eating, Drinking and Consuming Habits in Post-War Austria"[29]
- from Pohanka, Reinhard; Sinalco-Epoche kenne ich
References
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- ↑ Bernardo Friese, grandson of Max Sielaff
- ↑ a b c d Automat-Restaurants – AUTOMAT GmbH, 23 Spenerstrasse, Berlin, N.W. :: Trade Catalogs and Pamphlets - OCLC
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- ↑ "Horn & Hardart Automat, 968 6th Ave. between 35th & 36th Sts. (1986)", 36th Street, New York City Signs -- 14th to 42nd Street.
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External links
- In Praise of the Automat – slideshow by Life magazine
- Sielaff Automaten Berlin – Max Sielaff, Automat inventor website
- Used and new Automats in the United States
- Doris Day at the Automat in That Touch of Mink (1962)
- Token from Automaten cafe Quisisana, 57 Kärntner street, Vienna, Austria
- Automat Restaurants :: Trade Catalogs and Pamphlets - OCLC
- Automat Restaurants – over 100 years ago – My Stockholm BLOG