The Return of the Automat

[carebear]

Read for yourself. Any New Yorkers have reviews?

http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/3589

 

[MrBern]

Read for yourself. Any New Yorkers have reviews?

http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/3589

ironically, the site of the last NYC automat jsut got razed this year. It had survived as a steakhouse on 57th st. But it was only a few stories tall & rather artydeco. A tower will go up, no doubt.

For a while there was a Sushi equivalent in NYC. A conveyor belt counter that circulates sushi on colored plates. You jsut reach over & grab what you like. The cashier counts you plates. Prices are all colorcoded as per the plate.

 

[Feraud]

Hey MrBern, we should check it out.

 

[carebear]

Give a review if you do. I'll be in town over Christmas.

 

[Feraud]

I will.

Have you been to the Big Apple? Feel free to p.m. me in December. We will do dinner one evening.

 

[Wild Root]

This is cool! The Automat is something I wish we had here in CA... what a cool idea to bring it back!

If I were to open one, it would look like one out of the Great Depression! lol

=WR=

 

[carebear]

I will.

Have you been to the Big Apple? Feel free to p.m. me in December. We will do dinner one evening.

One time this prior spring with the folks. Rode the train in from Queens and took the subway downtown. Ate at Carnegies, took the lower Manhattan bus tour, went to the Natural History Museum.

We were on a timeline of visiting family so we only had a couple days. Once they get settled in Manhattan (on Columbus in the 90's) and the baby isn't just new, I'd like to go spend a good week there. See the shops and the out of the way cool stuff.

 

[BJonas]

Always wanted to go to one of these things, ever since I saw one in "Dark City". No chance here in Florida for one to open again though.

 

[Feraud]

I wanted to bump this thread with a few pictures. I scanned these from a book my wife has on her bookshelf called The Automat by Diehl and Hardart

 

[Hondo]

We have one at work, of course its empty, vender won’t add stuff, enough customers, they tend to be expensive these days, tricky with the sliding doors, but in the past they were cool I agree.

 

[carebear]

On the old ones, they actually had kitchens back behind, with folks making new food as it was purchased, right?

 

[Feraud]

On the old ones, they actually had kitchens back behind, with folks making new food as it was purchased, right?

They had a kitchen staff keeping the food slots full.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Much of the food for Automat locations was prepared in central commissaries, and sent out in refrigerated trucks to the individual restaurants -- and then reheated before being put in the slots. This meant the amount of kitchen space needed could be kept to a minimum. It really was an ingenious system for getting hot food to customers as efficiently as possible -- "Fast Food" '30s style.

 

[collarmelton]

The last automat in NYC

The last Horn & Hardart holdout was the one at the corner of 42nd and 3rd, and closed in 1991. I hadn't gone to the automat much past the 1970's but I do recall that it was something of a pain to have to feed lots of nickels into the slots to get lunch. To be frank, inflation rendered paying for a full meal in coins impractical after the 1960's. But I still remember fondly that coconut cream pie. Someone once told me that Horn & Hardart kept all their recipes locked up in a safe, like Coca Cola does with the "secret formula," but I don't know if that was true.

 

[Feraud]

MrBern and I almost walked right past this place until his sharp eye noticed the sign.
We walked in early this a.m. for a second breakfast of a bun stuffed with meat. There were two St. Patrick's Day leftovers trying hard to explain something about Amsterdam and buying food. Whatever..

 

[Dinerman]

thanks for posting that. That's really cool.

 

[carebear]

With the prevalence of debit cards and such I can see automats making a comeback. Swipe and go.

Fast food where you don't have to talk to a rude teenager?

The new American dream.

 

[Feraud]

A swipe and go system would be a convenient idea.
In the case of this automat, there is a change machine that provides dollar coins.
MrBern used a couple of Susan Bs to buy his snack.