A place where everyone ate

My Sunday movie was The Automat, a documentary about the Horn and Hardart automat restaurants in New York and Philadelphia. Yes, they were created by a Mr. Horn and a Mr. Hardart. The idea came from automat restaurants in Europe where the food was delivered by dumbwaiter. In America that became a wall of little windows. Behind each was an item of food. One put a nickel in the slot, opened the window, and took out the food. There were no visible waiters or servers, though people behind the wall kept the windows stocked. This was a place for a country fascinated by machines. The first one was in Philadelphia in 1902. It soon expanded to New York, though never went beyond those cities. Mel Brooks was one of several people in the movie who talked about the joys of the automat. Also featured were descendants of Mr. Horn, Mr. Hardart, and other top leadership. They all talked about what was special about these restaurants. First, the food was good, top quality. It was inexpensive – one could get a full meal for a few nickels. The coffee was the best around. The eating areas had fine décor – Art Deco style with marble tables, counters, and floors. It was also universally accessible, frequented by immigrants (one didn’t have to speak the language), the rich, and the poor. The whole of society mingled there. The rise of the automat was aided by the rise of women office workers who needed a place to get lunch. Even black people were welcome – one of the speakers was Colin Powell. It was so accessible it survived the Depression. It was inexpensive because much of the food was prepared in a central location in each city and because of that much of the work could be done by machines. They showed a machine that put the top crust on a pie. At its peak it served 800,000 people a day and made millions of chicken pies and millions of apple pies and millions of many other dishes in a year. During WWII troop ships that left New York carried H&H food. The restaurants had such cultural significance they were featured in many movies, the first one in 1925. The company supported its employees. They felt so cared for that attempts at unionization failed. As wonderful as it was it didn’t last. Highways meant city residents could move to the suburbs. That meant a big drop in breakfast, dinner, and weekend sales. There was a shift from cost to a dining experience, which meant a restaurant with waitstaff. A company president died without grooming a successor and the new guy wasn’t as committed. And many customers were turned off by the squatting vagrants. By the mid 1970s most of the restaurants had closed. The last one hung on until 1991. Many were replaced by fast food, Burger King at the top of the list. Does the H&H spirit live on? Howard Schulz, founder of Starbucks, thinks so. My dad had a several week training course in New York in 1963 and told stories of eating at an automat. My whole family visited New York in 1967. I wonder if we ate at an automat. I doubt it, though it would have been a good deal for a family of our size. I was next back in New York in 1974. Again I doubt I ate at an automat. I was again in the city in 1999 with my parents and a nephew. I’m pretty sure we ate at an automat, though by then it wasn’t H&H. I can’t leave a story about Horn and Hardart without mentioning the Concerto for Horn and Hardart by PDQ Bach and Peter Schickele, which appeared in 1965. This was a spoof composition (as was everything Schickele wrote under the PDQ Bach pseudonym) that features a real orchestral horn as one soloist and the other, the hardart, is a collection of noisemakers that happen to match the various pitches. It’s easily found online.