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]
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]
The first documented automat was Quisisana, which opened in 1895 in Berlin, Germany. [5] In 1904, a similar restaurant opened in Breslau. [6]
In Japan, in addition to vending machines that sell prepared food, many restaurants also use food ticket machines (Japanese : 食券機, romanized: shokkenki). 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]
Automats (Dutch : automatiek) 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]
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.[ citation needed ]
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]
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]
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.
Peter Schickele was an American composer, musical educator and parodist, best known for comedy albums featuring his music, which he presented as being composed by the fictional P.D.Q. Bach. He also hosted a long-running weekly radio program called Schickele Mix.
A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast-food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast-food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast-food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
A vending machine is an automated machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The first modern vending machines were developed in England in the early 1880s and dispensed postcards. Vending machines exist in many countries and, in more recent times, specialized vending machines that provide less common products compared to traditional vending machine items have been created.
Horn & Hardart was a food services company in the United States noted for operating the first food service automats in Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore.
Conveyor belt sushi, also called rotation sushi, is a type of sushi restaurant common in Japan. In Australasia, it is also known as a sushi train.
A cafeteria, sometimes called a canteen outside the U.S. and Canada, is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether in a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or lunchroom. Cafeterias are different from coffeehouses, although the English term came from the Spanish term cafetería, which carries the same meaning.
A buffet can be either a sideboard or a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners serve themselves. A form of service à la française, buffets are offered at various places including hotels, restaurants, and many social events. Buffet restaurants normally offer all-you-can-eat food for a set price, but some measure prices by weight or by number of dishes. Buffets usually have some or mostly hot dishes, so the term cold buffet has been developed to describe formats lacking hot food. Hot or cold buffets usually involve dishware and utensils, but a finger buffet is an array of foods that are designed to be small and easily consumed only by hand, such as cupcakes, slices of pizza, foods on cocktail sticks, etc.
FEBO is a chain of Dutch walk-up fast food restaurants of the automat type. Founded in 1941 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, FEBO is most notable for this automatic format: a counter is available for purchasing French fries, beverages, and hamburgers. Other FEBO snacks can be bought from the automats. The primary automat-vended items are krokets, frikandellen, hamburgers, kaassoufflés and similar items.
YO! Sushi is a chain of kiosks and conveyor belt sushi restaurants, principally in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Australia.
The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour was a variety show with a cast of children, including some who later became well-known adult performers. It had a long run for more than three decades. The program was sponsored by Horn & Hardart, which owned restaurants, bakeshops and automats in New York City and Philadelphia.
"Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" is a song by Irving Berlin appearing in the musical comedy Face the Music, which opened in 1932. On opening night it was sung by J. Harold Murray and Katherine Carrington. The song, set in a self-service restaurant modeled on the Horn & Hardart Automat, is sung in the play by a group of once-wealthy citizens who were awaiting better times, as mirrored in the song's opening lyrics:
Automat is a 1927 oil painting by the American realist painter Edward Hopper. The painting was first displayed on Valentine's Day 1927 at the opening of Hopper's second solo show, at the Rehn Galleries in New York City. By April it had been sold for $1,200. The painting is today owned by the Des Moines Art Center, in Iowa.
Zuma is a chain of Japanese Izakaya-style restaurants founded in 2002 by Rainer Becker and Arjun Waney. The first Zuma location opened in the Knightsbridge area of London, with a concept developed by Becker during his six years working in Tokyo, where he immersed himself in Japanese food and culture. It is one of the five-starred restaurants according to the Michelin Guide.
An automated restaurant or robotic restaurant is a restaurant that uses robots to do tasks such as delivering food and drink to the tables and/or cooking the food.
Frank Hardart Sr. was the co-founder with Joseph V. Horn of Horn & Hardart, the food service company that launched the Horn & Hardart Automat cafeterias in Philadelphia and New York. Patrons at the Automats could serve themselves by putting coins into a wall of glass-fronted dispensers, opening a door to an individual serving of everything from a hot entree or sandwich to a piece of pie.
Quisisana was a German company that introduced the world's first automat restaurant in June 1895 on the grounds of the Berlin Zoological Garden, Germany. The establishment was considered a success, selling 5,400 sandwiches, 9,000 glasses of wine and cordials, and 22,000 cups of coffee on the first Sunday of business. Quisisana also manufactured automat machines and equipment, including a milk vending machine which was adapted for use in German schools.
The Automat is a 2021 American documentary directed and produced by Lisa Hurwitz and written by Michael Levine. It is about the automats once operated by Horn & Hardart. It features an original song by Mel Brooks. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 2, 2021. It was released in the United States on February 18, 2022, by A Slice of Pie Productions. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
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"Um die Wurst" ergänzt die seit 12. Mai laufende Sonderausstellung "Die Sinalco-Epoche. Essen, Trinken, Konsumieren nach 1945", die noch bis zum 25. September zu sehen ist.
