Automat

File:StollwerckAutomatenrestaurant1896.jpg, Germany[http://www.friese-meckenheim.de/maxsielaff/automat-rest-1.html Bernardo Friese, grandson of Max Sielaff])]]

File:Meal ticket - shokkenki - May 13 2022 01-38PM.jpeg in 2022]]

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.{{Cite web |title=The Return of the Automat |url=https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/return-of-the-automat |access-date=2024-01-29 |website=Food & Wine |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Addison |date=2020-07-23 |title=Automat History {{!}} What is an Automat Restaurant? |url=https://www.historyassociates.com/automat/ |access-date=2024-01-29 |website=History Associates Incorporated |language=en-US}}

By country

=Germany=

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-25350-0001, Berlin, Alexanderplatz, Automatenrestaurant, Nacht.jpg

The first documented automat was Quisisana, which opened in 1895 in Berlin, Germany.{{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}} In 1904, a similar restaurant opened in Breslau.{{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}}

= Japan =

In Japan, in addition to vending machines that sell prepared food, many restaurants also use food ticket machines ({{langx|ja|食券機|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.{{Cite journal |last=Feng Hsin-I |first=Cindy |date=2011 |title=The Tale of Sushi: History and Regulations |url=https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2011.00180.x |journal=Institute of Food Technologists |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=206–207 |doi=10.1111/j.1541-4337.2011.00180.x |via=Wiley Online Library}}

= Netherlands =

File:Vendingautomaat warme snacks Efteling.jpg]]

File:Smullers.JPG automat/snack bar at Den Haag Centraal railway station]]

Automats ({{langx|nl|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. {{Cite web |last=Brenner |first=Elysia |date=2014-02-05 |title=Power-ranking the FEBO automat's wall of food |url=https://www.thrillist.com/eat/amsterdam/best-menu-items-at-febo-power-ranking-the-febo-automat-s-wall-of-food-thrillist-amsterdam |access-date=2024-01-31 |website=Thrillist |language=en}}

= United States =

File:20200729 0818-0820 CHESTNUT.jpg

The first automat in the United States was opened by food services company Horn & Hardart on June 12, 1902, at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."[http://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]. 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.[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 The automat spread to New York City in 1912,{{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}} and gradually became part of popular culture in northern industrial cities.

Originally, the machines in U.S. automats only accepted nickels.{{cite web

|url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/6/2006_6_19.shtml

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071020152554/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/6/2006_6_19.shtml

|title=Bamn! The Automat Is Back – Restaurant – Food & Drink

|last1=Lui

|first1=Claire

|date=

|year=2006

|publisher=American Heritage Magazine

|archive-date=2007-10-20

|url-status = dead

|access-date=2015-03-15

}} 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.{{cite web |date=January 30, 2007 |title=Landmarks Preservation Commission |url=https://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2192.pdf |access-date=2024-11-22 |website=New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission |publisher=New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission}}

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.

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|date=June 2011}}

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.{{cite news | first=James | last=Barron | title=Last Automat Closes, Its Era Long Gone | date=April 11, 1991 | url =https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/11/nyregion/last-automat-closes-its-era-long-gone.html | work =The New York Times | access-date = 2009-07-16 }}{{cite news | title=New York's Last Automat Closes | date=April 11, 1991 | work= St. Petersburg Times | url =https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iZwMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6820,42067&dq=automat+1991 | agency =Associated Press | access-date = 2009-07-16 }}

= 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,{{cite news |last=Matthews |first=Karen |title=Updated Automat to open in New York City |agency=Associated Press |date=August 28, 2006 |website=boston.com |url=http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/08/28/updated_automat_to_open_in_new_york_city/ |access-date=2006-08-28}} only to close three years later.{{cite web |url=http://ny.eater.com/archives/2009/03/the_shutter_felled_bamn_to_become_baoguette.php |title=The Shutter: Felled Bamn! to Become Baoguette? |website=Eater NY |author=Amanda Kludt |date=March 9, 2009}} 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;{{Cite news|last=Charlesworth|first=Michelle|date=January 27, 2021|title=Blast from the past: Automat returns with a modern twist|publisher=ABC 7 Eyewitness News|url=https://abc7ny.com/food/blast-from-the-past-automat-returns-with-a-modern-twist/10070679/|access-date=2021-02-06}}{{Cite web|last=Hamstra|first=Mark|date=February 3, 2021|title=Automat Kitchen puts modern spin on classic no-contact format|url=https://www.restaurant-hospitality.com/technology/automat-kitchen-puts-modern-spin-classic-no-contact-format|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210203170025/https://www.restaurant-hospitality.com/technology/automat-kitchen-puts-modern-spin-classic-no-contact-format |archive-date=2021-02-03 |access-date=2021-02-06|website=Restaurant Hospitality}} however, it closed after one year of operation because of low foot traffic due to the pandemic.{{cite web | url=https://www.reddit.com/r/jerseycity/comments/v50mlf/automat_kitchen_at_newport_mall_is_a_goner/ | title=Automat Kitchen at Newport Mall is a goner | date=4 June 2022 }} Another automat chain, the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, opened in the East Village in 2021;{{Cite web|last=Warerkar|first=Tanay|date=January 21, 2021|title=A First Look at Brooklyn Dumpling Shop's Automat|url=https://ny.eater.com/2021/1/20/22241093/nyc-automat-brooklyn-dumpling-shop-video|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120231622/https://ny.eater.com/2021/1/20/22241093/nyc-automat-brooklyn-dumpling-shop-video |archive-date=2021-01-20 |access-date=2021-02-06|website=Eater New York}} they opened a chain in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in December 2023.{{Cite web |last=Sheehan |first=Jason |date=2023-12-12 |title=South Street is Getting a New Dumpling Automat |url=https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2023/12/12/brooklyn-dumpling-shop-automat-south-street/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Philadelphia Magazine |language=en-US}}

File:Automat, 977 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan (NYPL b13668355-482752).jpg|An automat in Manhattan, New York City in 1936.

File:Bamn Automat.png|An automat in Manhattan's East Village, c. 2007.

File:Horn & Hardart Automat New York City 57th Street.JPG|An automat at 1165 Sixth Avenue, New York City, in the 1930s.

File:Horn & Hardart automat.JPG|A Horn & Hardart postcard explaining how food was served in an automat, c. 1930s.

File:Bamn Automat.jpg|A Bamn! automat, 2006

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.{{cite news|title=Automat Buffet Cars For British Railways|publisher=Reuters|date=26 December 1945}} Plans were delayed by impending nationalisation, but an automat was finally introduced on the Cambrian Coast Express in 1962.{{cite journal|journal=The Railway Gazette|title=Railway Gazette|page=709|volume=119|year=1963}}

In the United States, the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced an automat between New York Penn Station, and Washington Union Station, in 1954.{{cite journal|title=Automatic Buffet-Bar Car Introduced By Pennsy|journal=Locomotive Engineers Journal|page=236|volume=88|publisher=Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers|date=1954}} 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.{{cite book |title=Jane's World Railways |publisher=Jane's Yearbooks |year=1988 |isbn=0-7106-0871-3 |editor-last=Allen |editor-first=Geoffrey Freeman |page=700}}

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.

References

External links

[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
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111121123737/http://www.theautomat.com/ 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)
[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
[http://blog.svd.se/mittstockholm/2013/11/08/automatrestauranger-for-over-100-ar-sedan/ Automat Restaurants – over 100 years ago – My Stockholm BLOG]

Category:Fast-food restaurants

Category:Restaurants by type

Category:Vending

Category:Retail formats

de:Automatenrestaurant