🍽 Automats: The late, great equalizer

Coin-operated togetherness Imagine it’s 1952, and you’re on your lunch break in New York City. You grab your porkpie hat and amble over to the Horn & Hardart automat in Times Square, where dozens of ready-to-eat comestibles await diners in individual glass cases. You insert a couple of nickels into coin slots and head to a communal table to chow down on a corned beef sandwich and slice of coconut cream pie, on the cutting edge of the restaurant industry’s self-service future. Coin-operated technology wasn’t the only thing that made the automat special. (Hot food, it should be noted, was served buffet-style.) During the first half of the 20th century, Horn & Hardart’s dozens of art deco cafeterias doubled as public squares. Secretaries and celebrities shared tables with tourists and cash-strapped artists. Automats [served as sanctuaries]( for gay men, and unusually for the time, the dining halls were racially integrated, as the late US secretary of state [Colin Powell recalls]( in the 2021 documentary [The Automat](. The self-service aspect of automats appealed to immigrants, too. “It had incredible food, it was cheap, you didn’t need to speak English, you could stay there a while,” documentary director Lisa Hurwitz [explained]( in a recent New York Times interview. It’s no wonder playwright Neil Simon fondly [called the automat]( “the Maxim’s of the disenfranchised.” The last Horn & Hardart [closed in 1991]( after nearly 100 years in business. But the automat is still remembered for [anticipating]( the ways that urbanization and office work would change how people ate. Now the system may be poised for a comeback, thanks to a pandemic-era [surge of interest]( in food-service options that lend themselves to social distancing. Make your selection, and then let’s dig in. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Weekly Obsession] Automats May 25, 2022 Coin-operated togetherness --------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine it’s 1952, and you’re on your lunch break in New York City. You grab your porkpie hat and amble over to the Horn & Hardart automat in Times Square, where dozens of ready-to-eat comestibles await diners in individual glass cases. You insert a couple of nickels into coin slots and head to a communal table to chow down on a corned beef sandwich and slice of coconut cream pie, on the cutting edge of the restaurant industry’s self-service future. Coin-operated technology wasn’t the only thing that made the automat special. (Hot food, it should be noted, was served buffet-style.) During the first half of the 20th century, Horn & Hardart’s dozens of art deco cafeterias doubled as public squares. Secretaries and celebrities shared tables with tourists and cash-strapped artists. Automats [served as sanctuaries]( for gay men, and unusually for the time, the dining halls were racially integrated, as the late US secretary of state [Colin Powell recalls]( in the 2021 documentary [The Automat](. The self-service aspect of automats appealed to immigrants, too. “It had incredible food, it was cheap, you didn’t need to speak English, you could stay there a while,” documentary director Lisa Hurwitz [explained]( in a recent New York Times interview. It’s no wonder playwright Neil Simon fondly [called the automat]( “the Maxim’s of the disenfranchised.” The last Horn & Hardart [closed in 1991]( after nearly 100 years in business. But the automat is still remembered for [anticipating]( the ways that urbanization and office work would change how people ate. Now the system may be poised for a comeback, thanks to a pandemic-era [surge of interest]( in food-service options that lend themselves to social distancing. Make your selection, and then let’s dig in. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( By the digits [80+:]( Number of Horn & Hardart locations in New York and Philadelphia at the automat’s peak [800,000:]( Number of daily patrons served by Horn & Hardart automats in the 1950s [500,000:]( Cups of coffee served at Horn & Hardart per day in 1950 [5 cents:]( Price of a cup of coffee at Horn & Hardart from 1912 to 1950 (when it reluctantly raised the cost to 10 cents) [7:]( Number of days a week the automat was open [243:]( Number of dishes available on a 1958 Horn & Hardart menu The gold standard for standardization --------------------------------------------------------------- Long before fast food chains instructed franchisees on everything from how long to cook fries to the [correct way to assemble a burger](, Horn & Hardart pioneered standardization in the restaurant industry, ensuring that visitors to any of their New York and Philadelphia locations would enjoy the same perfectly crisp-crusted chicken pot pie or velvety pudding. “Recipes and preparation were rigorously controlled by owners in the cafeterias and central commissaries by regular sampling and detailed training manuals,” Nicolas Bromell [writes in an essay]( for the journal New York History. The manual went so far as to specify the exact measurements of the square of bacon served as a garnish atop baked beans: [1 inch by 1 inch](. Horn & Hardart’s exacting methods prioritized speed as well: A small assembly line of four cooks was charged with making six pies per minute. “The first placed a pie plate on a frame and covered it with a sheet of dough, the second added the filling, a third placed a top crust over it, and a fourth trimmed the edges and marked the dough to indicate the type of filling,” Gourmet magazine [explains](. In these ways, the automat catered to the public’s growing appetite for convenience, as busy [white-collar employees]( sought out places where they could grab a quick, dependable bite on their lunch breaks. Meanwhile, its stained-glass decor, diverse clientele, and workers with rubber-tipped fingers who made change for the automat machines—called “[nickel throwers](”—all infused daily meals with a sense of spectacle. Starbucks CEO [Howard Schultz]( notes in The Automat documentary that Horn & Hardart inspired his vision for the omnipresent coffee chain, with the goal of offering customers “theater, excitement, surprise, and delight.” Youtube Watch this! Be your own barista --------------------------------------------------------------- The automat’s most famously dependable order was its coffee. Brewed fresh every 20 minutes and priced at exactly 5 cents a cup for decades, it gushed from chrome dolphin-shaped spouts modeled on a fountain that co-founder Joseph Horn had stumbled across in Italy. In this clip from the 1934 movie Sadie McKee, Joan Crawford fills her porcelain cup from the automat’s iconic spout and eyes another patron’s leftover pie—only to watch him use the slice to stub out a cigarette. Giphy Pop quiz! Which of these cultural touchstones does *not* include an automat reference? Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)An Affair to Remember (1957)A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith (1943)A 1927 painting by Edward Hopper Correct. Not an automat in sight. Incorrect. Co-starring: Automat! If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Brief history of Horn & Hardart [1895:]( The world’s first automat, Quisisana, opens in Berlin [1902:]( The first US automat, Horn & Hardart, opens in Philadelphia [1912:]( Horn & Hardart opens a second location in New York City’s Times Square [1924:]( Horn & Hardart begins selling packaged food in retail shops, using the slogan “Less Work for Mother” [1937:]( The AFL-CIO pickets Horn & Hardart, demanding better working conditions for those behind-the-scenes [1958:]( Horn & Hardart posts its peak year for corporate earnings [1966:]( Horn & Hardart attempts to keep up with the times by opening the Windomat, which offers sidewalk service as “its answer to the hamburger stand,” and a [Wild West Room]( for kids [1970s:]( Horn & Hardart begins converting its locations into Arby’s and Burger King franchises [1991:]( The last Horn and Hardart automat shutters in New York City Whither the automat? --------------------------------------------------------------- While automats offered quick, cheap meals, they were ultimately felled by the likes of McDonald’s and Burger King, which promised even faster food (no need to eat in!) and catered to Americans’ growing fondness for burgers and fries. Customers “don’t want a meat course and two vegetables that you get in a cafeteria line,” the heir to Horn & Hardart told the New York Times in 1978, [explaining the chain’s decision]( to convert some locations into Burger Kings. As business slowed, Horn & Hardart cut back on quality control, too, and customers [noticed the difference](. Suburbanization also took its toll on automats, as historian Paula Johnson [told Atlas Obscura](. As workers headed home from the city after work and dined at [offices with subsidized cafeterias]( during the day, fewer middle-class types passed through. By the 1970s, the chain’s image had lost its chromatic shine. During the day, typical patrons were “[elderly people nursing coffee](,” according to the Times; in the evening, the vibe was “hookers and hustlers and drugs…very disreputable,” the actor Dustin Hoffman [recalled](. (He convinced the director of Midnight Cowboy that he was right for the part of a con man by showing off how well he blended in with the automat clientele in Times Square.) Fun menu! --------------------------------------------------------------- What would you order at the automat? Peruse [this copy]( of Horn & Hardart’s 1958 menu to get a sense of the multitude of Americana options, from $1 fried sea scallops ($10 today with inflation) to chicken pot pie and hot fudge sundaes. Automats across time and space --------------------------------------------------------------- While the Horn & Hardart automat was distinctly Americana, other countries also embraced the automat. The Netherlands’ FEBO automat [first opened in 1960]( and remains a [fast-food institution](, specializing in fried fare like croquettes and cheese pastries. Japan, meanwhile, has a variation on the automat theme with [kaitenzushi](, plates of pre-prepared sushi that glide past diners on conveyor belts. Earlier in the pandemic, one Japanese chain catered to homebound sushi fans missing the dining-out experience by [renting out conveyor belts]( they could set up at home. In the US and Canada, a number of new restaurants are now trying to bring back the automat. These include the [Brooklyn Dumpling Shop]( in New York City; [Box’d in Toronto, Canada](; and [Automat Kitchen]( in Jersey City, New Jersey. And the pandemic means there may be newfound interest in restaurants that minimize contact between diners and workers—not to mention an increasing comfort level with self-serve technology. That said, the return of automats (should it come to pass) isn’t necessarily a good thing from a labor perspective. As Joshua David Stein [writes for Eater](, Horn & Hardart was repeatedly accused of exploiting behind-the-scenes workers: “One of the ancillary benefits of the automat system is that the machinery functioned as a steel curtain.” When it comes to automation in food service, he suggests, the concern isn’t so much about robots taking human jobs as that the workers who remain are being treated fairly. Giphy Poll Will the automat succeed in making a comeback? [Click here to vote]( Yes, I’m ready for the retro-futureNo, it’s just a glorified vending machineSome days, I feel like my family’s personal automat 💬 let's talk! In last week’s poll about [fanfiction](, 45% of you said you don’t read it, but 21% said you’re currently writing it, and we want to see some links. 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20automats%20&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 🎲 [Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Sarah Todd]( (lover of conveyor belt sushi), edited by [Susan Howson]( (would love a coin-operated pie door at home), and produced by [Jordan Weinstock]( (has found their next statement piece). [facebook]([twitter]([external-link]( The correct answer to the quiz is An Affair to Remember (1957). Enjoying the Quartz Weekly Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! Want to advertise in the Quartz Weekly Obsession? Send us an email at ads@qz.com. Not enjoying it? No worries. [Click here]( to unsubscribe. Quartz | 675 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10011 | United States