# Automat
An automat is a self-service, "waiterless" restaurant in which prepared food is sold from coin-operated compartments behind glass doors; in the later [Horn & Hardart](https://www.edgepedia.org/horn-and-hardart) format, staff restocked each compartment from the rear as a customer removed its contents. The format first appeared in Germany and [Scandinavia](https://www.edgepedia.org/scandinavia) in the 1890s and reached its largest expression in the United States through Horn & Hardart, which opened its first Automat in Philadelphia on June 9, 1902 and ran the format until the last New York location closed on April 9, 1991[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/) • [2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat) • [10](https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/818-chestnut-street-where-the-automat-began).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First automat | The Quisiana opened at the Berlin Zoological Garden in the mid-1890s, dispensing hot sandwiches, coffee, and wine from coin-operated glass-enclosed kiosks[3](https://interestingengineering.com/culture/the-first-fast-food-restaurants-were-automats) |
| First US Automat | Horn & Hardart, 818 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, June 9, 1902, using "waiterless restaurant" equipment imported from Berlin[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat) • [10](https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/818-chestnut-street-where-the-automat-began) |
| Pricing | Most dishes cost five or 10 cents; three meals a day cost less than fifty cents; coffee stayed a nickel from 1912 to 1950[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation) • [1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/) • [5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/) • [12](https://www.wired.com/2008/06/june-9-1902-first-automat-restaurant-opens/) |
| Scale | By 1940 Horn & Hardart fed 700,000 people each day; at its peak it was the world's largest restaurant chain[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/) • [4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation) |
| Not truly automatic | A worker behind the wall restocked each compartment as soon as it was emptied; "nickel throwers" exchanged bills for the five-cent pieces the machines required[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/) |
| End | Bankruptcies in 1971, 1981, and 1990; the last Automat, at 200 East 42nd Street, New York, closed April 9, 1991[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/) • [2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat) |
| Revival | In June 2024 CEO Jimmy Arena relaunched the Horn & Hardart coffee business and announced plans to reopen an Automat using tap-to-pay instead of coins[7](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html) |
## Two founding lineages
The automat has two distinct origins. In Europe, the first automat, called Quisiana, opened at the Berlin Zoological Garden in the mid-1890s, where customers inserted coins into a glass-enclosed kiosk and received hot sandwiches, cups of coffee, and even glasses of wine[3](https://interestingengineering.com/culture/the-first-fast-food-restaurants-were-automats). Automats then spread through Germany and Scandinavia during the 1890s, and before World War I there were 125 Automats in Imperial Germany[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/) • [8](https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.FOOD.1.100652).
The American lineage began with Joseph Horn (1861–1941) and Frank Hardart (1850–1918), whose Philadelphia baking company imported the technology from Quisiana, a Berlin-based manufacturer[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/). They had opened their first lunchroom in Philadelphia in 1888 and incorporated in 1898; the first Automat, at 818 Chestnut Street, opened in 1902 with equipment imported from Berlin, where a local Automat restaurant had proved successful[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat). The machine they adopted was a Swiss-designed concept manufactured in Germany, essentially a primitive vending machine[9](https://www.inquirer.com/history/horn-hardart-automat-opening-philadelphia-20250613.html).
The two versions differed sharply in character. European Automats were small, novelty-like affairs with unreliable brass machines; the American version was larger and grander, with [Art Deco](https://www.edgepedia.org/art-deco) accents, chrome paneling, stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings, and improved mechanization[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/). The company expanded quickly: a second Automat in 1905, a third in 1907, a fourth in 1912, and the first New York Automat, on [Times Square](https://www.edgepedia.org/times-square), in 1912[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/) • [2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat). In 1924 it opened its first take-out stores selling prepackaged Automat food[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat).
## How it worked
The machine customers remember was designed by Horn & Hardart's chief engineer John Fritsche (spelled Frische in company materials), who secured a patent in 1906 for an automat holding ready-to-eat dishes behind a bank of clear glass windows four rows high, stocked from the rear[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/) • [10](https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/818-chestnut-street-where-the-automat-began). The front was milk glass with four rectangular windows, each operated by a knob: insert a coin, turn the knob, and open the window[10](https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/818-chestnut-street-where-the-automat-began).
**Keeping food at temperature.** Behind each stack of four compartments Fritsche added a rotating vertical cylinder, loaded from behind and rotated 180 degrees to bring a dish to the window. Hollow chambers in the drum were filled with hot or cold water to maintain the food's temperature while it sat on display[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/). Cold items were presented through the small glass doors, while hot foods were picked up at buffet-style steam tables[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/).
**The hidden labor.** Automats were not truly automatic. As a customer removed a compartment's contents, a staff member behind the machine quickly slipped in another sandwich, salad, piece of pie, or coffee cake[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/). Food was made as required behind the wall rather than stockpiled, and the machines needed regular mechanical tune-ups, "just like a car"[11](http://www.csmonitor.com/1986/0417/hhorn-f.html). Women with rubber tips on their fingers, known as "nickel throwers," worked in glass booths giving customers the five-cent pieces required to operate the food machines[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/).
**Supply.** The earliest automats relied on dumbwaiter technology, with a kitchen underneath the dining room; at the first Automat, customers inserted a token, waited while the dish was cranked up from the basement, then inserted a second token to receive the meal[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/) • [10](https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/818-chestnut-street-where-the-automat-began). Preparation was later centralized: in 1908 Horn & Hardart established a central commissary dispatching dishes by truck to Philadelphia cafeterias several times a day, keeping costs low through an assembly-line system[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/), and board members tested menu items daily at the commissary[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/).
**Freshness rules.** After brewing each batch of coffee, employees filled out a time card, and after 20 minutes they discarded whatever remained and prepared more[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/). A leather-bound rule book given to every manager covered the handling of nearly 400 menu items, plate presentation, and the number of daily tabletop wipes; no food was left overnight, and surplus went to "day-old" shops in low-income neighborhoods at reduced prices[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/).
## The business model
Nickel-and-dime pricing was the core of the model. Most dishes cost five or 10 cents, and for less than fifty cents diners could eat three meals a day[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation) • [1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/). A cup of coffee cost a nickel from 1912, when that was worth about $1.10 in today's money, until 1950, when it was worth about 45 cents[12](https://www.wired.com/2008/06/june-9-1902-first-automat-restaurant-opens/). Volume made it work: in the 1950s heyday the Automats sold more than 90 million cups of fresh-brewed coffee each year[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/).
**The coffee price break.** By the early 1950s the company was losing 2 or 3 cents on every nickel cup of coffee. On November 28, 1950 it doubled the price to a dime, and sales fell from 70 million cups a year to 45 million[13](https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/revisiting-the-era-of-automatic-dining/) • [6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/). The episode showed the limits of the coin-based model: as inflation pushed prices higher, coin-operated machines became impractical, and by 1986 the company had switched to tokens costing 40 cents for coffee and 75 cents for sandwiches[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation) • [11](http://www.csmonitor.com/1986/0417/hhorn-f.html).
## Automats in city life
Automats functioned as social equalizers. Patrons were discouraged from tipping, coin slots kept dining expenditures discreetly hidden, and diners could sit anywhere, so paupers and investment bankers might sit together at the same table[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/). With no waiters to tip and most dishes at five or 10 cents, the Automats held economic appeal for working-class and frugal diners[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation).
Different locations drew different crowds. In Philadelphia, stevedores preferred the 24-hour location at 234 Market Street, while politicians and judges frequented 1508 Market Street[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/). By the 1920s, all of the Horn & Hardarts in New York were hybrid automat-cafeterias where a customer could put a nickel in the wall or go through a cafeteria line; a combination automat-cafeteria could serve 10,000 customers per day[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/).
## By the numbers
The scale figures vary by source and year, which is worth stating plainly. By 1932 the company had 46 restaurants in Philadelphia, of which fewer than half contained Automats; by 1940 it fed 700,000 people each day including New York[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/). The New York Times archive puts the peak at as many as 750,000 people a day across Automats, waiter-less cafeterias, and retail shops[13](https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/revisiting-the-era-of-automatic-dining/), while a 2024 Inquirer report says 157 locations and 800,000 people a day just before World War II[7](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html). On location counts, History.com cites more than 80 locations in New York and Philadelphia at its height[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation), the Inquirer cites more than 165 locations (Automats, cafeterias, and retail shops) at peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s[9](https://www.inquirer.com/history/horn-hardart-automat-opening-philadelphia-20250613.html), and the same paper's other piece gives 157 just before the war[7](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html). The counts differ because they measure different things (Automat walls alone versus all company food outlets) and different years; the 700,000 to 800,000 daily-customer range and the "world's largest restaurant chain" claim recur across independent sources[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation) • [8](https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.FOOD.1.100652).
## Decline and the last automat
The decline had several converging causes. Americans moved to the suburbs and came downtown less often, so night business fell; with lower labor and food costs, modern fast-food restaurants such as [McDonald's](https://www.edgepedia.org/mcdonalds) and White Castle competed directly[5](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/). As New York City's population declined in the 1950s, Horn & Hardart's prospects declined with it; inflation made the coin-operated machines impractical, quality declined, and the fast-food chains the Automats had inspired began to take their customers[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation).
The corporate record shows the squeeze. The Philadelphia branch of Horn & Hardart filed for bankruptcy in 1971, again in 1981, and again in 1990[6](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/). In 1965 the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority forced the company to close its commissary for [Thomas Jefferson University](https://www.edgepedia.org/thomas-jefferson-university) dormitories[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/). Greater Philadelphia's last Automat, in Bala Cynwyd, closed on May 12, 1990[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/), and the last remaining Automat, at 200 East 42nd Street in New York City, closed on April 9, 1991[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat).
## Afterlife and revivals
The original 818 Chestnut Street Automat was auctioned in May 1969 and its interior donated to the [National Museum of American History](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-museum-of-american-history), where the Automat wall went on permanent display[1](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/) • [7](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html). The company itself moved into franchising, purchasing [Burger King](https://www.edgepedia.org/burger-king) and Arby's franchises along with Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits[4](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation), and the brand now operates as a direct-to-consumer coffee seller[14](https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/automated-retail/2024/the-automat-is-back-thanks-to-the-rise-of-self-service-again/).
**The 2024 revival.** In June 2024 CEO Jimmy Arena revived the Horn & Hardart online coffee business and said he hoped to reopen Horn & Hardart, Automat and all, within a year, likely in Philadelphia with New York to follow[7](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html) • [15](https://nypost.com/2024/06/03/lifestyle/horn-amp-hardart-automats-to-return-to-nyc-from-the-dead-thanks-to-a-determined-millennial/). Arena said the planned revived Automats would serve breakfast and lunch only, keep the 1920s and 1930s beaux arts and art deco styling and original recipes, and use credit cards and tap-to-pay to open the cubbyholes and collect sales data, with no touch-screen ordering and no machines taking jobs from cooks[7](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html) • [15](https://nypost.com/2024/06/03/lifestyle/horn-amp-hardart-automats-to-return-to-nyc-from-the-dead-thanks-to-a-determined-millennial/).
**Other automat-format ventures.** The format has been retried repeatedly. Bamn! opened an automat in New York's East Village in 2006 and closed by 2009; Eatsa opened six automated restaurants from 2015, all closed by July 2019, after which the company rebranded as Brightloom and partnered with [Starbucks](https://www.edgepedia.org/starbucks)[3](https://interestingengineering.com/culture/the-first-fast-food-restaurants-were-automats). In 2024, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, which uses an automat format, was expanding nationally; Jersey City's Automat Kitchen, opened in 2021, closed after roughly a year; and 7-Eleven was opening vending-machine food concepts in Asia, including a Singapore location selling sandwiches, salads, and other fresh foods[14](https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/automated-retail/2024/the-automat-is-back-thanks-to-the-rise-of-self-service-again/).
## References
1. [Automats, Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia](https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/automats-2/)
2. [Horn & Hardart Automat, Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Horn-and-Hardart-Automat)
3. [The First Fast Food Restaurants Were Automats, Interesting Engineering](https://interestingengineering.com/culture/the-first-fast-food-restaurants-were-automats)
4. [The Automat: Birth of a Fast Food Nation, HISTORY](https://www.history.com/articles/the-automat-birth-of-a-fast-food-nation)
5. [Meet Me at the Automat, Smithsonian Magazine](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/meet-me-at-the-automat-47804151/)
6. [Coin-Op Cuisine, Collectors Weekly](https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/coin-op-cuisine/)
7. [The return of Horn & Hardart Automat may be on the horizon, Philadelphia Inquirer](https://www.inquirer.com/food/restaurants/automat-horn-and-hardart-philadelphia-bring-back-restaurant-20240608.html)
8. [Food & History (Brepols) article on Automats](https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.FOOD.1.100652)
9. [Horn & Hardart Automat opened in Philadelphia in June 1902, Philadelphia Inquirer](https://www.inquirer.com/history/horn-hardart-automat-opening-philadelphia-20250613.html)
10. [June 9, 1902: The Opening of the First Automat, Horn & Hardart](https://hornandhardart.com/blogs/blog/818-chestnut-street-where-the-automat-began)
11. [At the Automat, Christian Science Monitor (1986)](http://www.csmonitor.com/1986/0417/hhorn-f.html)
12. [June 9, 1902: First Automat Restaurant Opens, WIRED](https://www.wired.com/2008/06/june-9-1902-first-automat-restaurant-opens/)
13. [Revisiting the Era of Automatic Dining, New York Times archive](https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/revisiting-the-era-of-automatic-dining/)
14. [The Automat Is Back, Thanks to the Rise of Self-Service, PYMNTS](https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/automated-retail/2024/the-automat-is-back-thanks-to-the-rise-of-self-service-again/)
15. [Horn & Hardart Automats to return to NYC from the dead, New York Post](https://nypost.com/2024/06/03/lifestyle/horn-amp-hardart-automats-to-return-to-nyc-from-the-dead-thanks-to-a-determined-millennial/)
16. [The Automat Turns Meals into a Machine Interface, Human Food Atlas](https://humanfoodatlas.com/food-technology/the-automat-turns-meals-into-a-machine-interface)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Economics and business › Business and work › Retail trade and general-merchandise stores*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 10, 2026; Oct 11, 2026 · Last review: Oct 10, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license