There was nothing like the coffee at the Automat
Its aroma and its flavor was supreme
From a silver dolphin spout, the coffee came right out
Not to mention at the end a little spurt of cream.
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| The Automat at 21557 Broadway, in New York City, circa 1930s. |
Brooks also gets considerable face time in this affectionate ode to what once was a gleaming jewel of progressive food service technology, and was for decades the largest and most popular restaurant chain in the United States … despite having locations in only two cities: Philadelphia and New York.
“This was by any measure,” notes Automat historian Alec Shuldiner. “The number of restaurants, the number of people served every day, the number of people employed. It was a true phenomenon of its time.”
Essential history and background commentary, as this film proceeds, is provided by Shuldiner, New York City historian Lisa Keller, and Marianne Hardart and Lorraine Diehl, authors of the 2002 book, The Automat: The History, Recipes and Allure of Horn & Hardart’s Masterpiece.
Hurwitz began work on this film in 2013, having been intrigued — while in college — by the communal nature of cafeteria food, and having discovered Shuldiner’s PhD dissertation, Trapped Behind the Automat: Technological Systems and the American Restaurant, 1902-1991. This prompted her deep, eight-year dive into the careers of Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart, who opened their first restaurant — a lunchroom with a counter and 15 stools, but no tables — in Philadelphia in December 1888.
The venue became a quick success because of their secret weapon: Hardart, raised in New Orleans, introduced Philadelphians to his home city’s style of coffee, blended with chicory. People couldn’t get enough of it.
Horn & Hardart incorporated in 1898. Four years later, inspired by Max Sielaff’s Automat Restaurants in Berlin, they opened their first U.S. Automat on June 12, 1902, in Philadelphia. The first New York Automat followed a decade later, after which this “mini-chain” exploded in number.
