Germany has new type fast food restaurant

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Fast food, German-style

[kbletzer Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close kbletzer]

That looks like fun! I wanna go!
K

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

As a child I went to an ''Automat'' restaurant in New York City that operated on the same principle, but this seems a bit more high tech.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

For us geezers the automat was cool. For the youngsters, you put coins in a big bank of doors at the food door that housed what you wanted then opened the door which unlocked. You also could do the same at drink fountains. Then you took the food and/or drink to a table. Not sure when it all came to an end.

[jericap Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close jericap]

I loved the automats! We went to the ones in New York and a few in Florida!! I wonder what would happen if someone ever brought those back?

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

are we talking the Horn & Hardart? Very edge of my memory and loved it!

ETA: I wasn't aware that there was at least one location open until '91

During 1940s and 1950s, more than 50 New York Horn and Hardart restaurants served about 350,000 customers a day. The chain remained popular into the 1960s with automats, sit-down waitress service restaurants, cafeterias and bakery shops. During the late 1960s, consultants attempted to focus attention on automats with interior decoration relevant to surrounding neighborhoods; thus, the Automat on 14th Street was decorated with psychedelic posters. The eateries closed with the rise of fast-food restaurants. The last New York Horn and Hardart Automat (on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue) closed in April 1991.
Augustin Hardart was the last of three generations to manage the Automats, and his daughter, Marianne Hardart, collaborated with columnist Lorraine B. Daily to document the family history in The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece (Clarkson Potter, 2002).

[jericap Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close jericap]

I don't remember the name, but I do remember it was a pretty big place, (unless it just seemed big) almost like a cafeteria.

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

When I was a kid, each year we did something special, like the Radio City Christmas show, or the Ringling Brothers Circus, or the Ice Capades. My memory says we went to the automat afterwards, but it was probably before the show. I thought it was a cool place.

Anyone remember "That Girl"? I remember an episode when she didn't have any change and ended up making tomato soup with ketchup and hot water at the automat. I don't know why I remember that episode but I do!

Sue

[JudyS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JudyS]

This restaurant reminds me of one of the inventions in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang -- the family's food comes to them on plates with little rollers, that slide down a track.

I went to Horn & Hardart's automats in New York a few times when I was young.

I vaguely remember "That Girl", but don't remember that episode.

[IreneLF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close IreneLF]

I grew up in Manhattan, across the street from the one on 14th street.
Loved them too!
Most vivid memory is from a friend's 7th birthday party.
Her parents took us to a movie (in a cab, the big checkered kind with the jump seats) and then to the automat. They gave us a bunch of nickels and we bought whatever we wanted by ourselves. I remember the hot chocolate coming out of a spout, some baked beans in a little pot and all those glass doors with food behind them. They were cool at least to a kid.

This German concept looks hilarious, especially with the food coming down the swirly helter skelter spiral thing in the picture.

[grest Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close grest]

What fun! I'd definitely try this.
Connie

[EAM Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close EAM]

I am reminded of a shoe store that had an interesting mechanism for transporting shoes from the upstairs storeroom to the customer area downstairs. The shoeboxes were placed in little wire baskets that ran down tracks to the lower level.

[Joe L Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe L]

Def Horn and Hardat. They used to have someone in a booth that you got change from for the little windows. I was a pre-teen when they left in NYC. The pies were outstanding.