Joe Horn and Frank Hardart open the Automat at 818 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. It’s America’s first coin-operated cafeteria.
A customer put a nickel (or several) into a slot, turned a knob, and opened a little glass door to withdraw the food. Horn and Hardart used Swedish-patented equipment they’d imported from Berlin, which already sported a successful “waiterless restaurant.”
The company branched out to New York in 1912 and continued to expand. The place was a bargain. A cup of coffee still cost a nickel in 1950 (about 50¢ in today’s money) before it finally rose to two nickels.
Employee “nickel throwers” at the head of the line exchanged currency or large coins for the nickels needed for the coin slots. One nickel for coffee, five for the turkey and gravy, another nickel for pie. You could also have a famous macaroni and cheese, chicken potpie, Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, or baked beans. Desserts were also renowned: huckleberry, pumpkin, coconut cream, and custard pies; vanilla ice cream with real vanilla beans; and rice pudding with plump raisins.
It was all prepared in centralized, assembly-line kitchens using standardized recipes that called for quality ingredients. This, plus eighty-five locations in Philadelphia and New York, made it America’s first fast-food chain.
Irving Berlin composed “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee” about the Automat. Edward Hopper painted it. The Broadway set for The Producers included it. But the chain succumbed to the ever-rising price of the ingredients in its original recipes and to the growing popularity of fast-food chains and pizza parlors. Philly’s last Automat closed in 1990, and New York’s a year later.
The Automat lives on in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History: an elaborately decorated, thirty-five-foot section of Philadelphia’s original 1902 Horn & Hardart, complete with mirrors and marble.—RA