The Automat: A Warm Memory of a Dining Concept that Defined a Century of American Culture

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B  

For a while, it was the largest restaurant chain in America. Even though it was just in two cities, New York City and Philadelphia, it had the most franchises, and thousands of loyal employees. 

The Automat was a very specific phenomenon in the history of American restaurants and culture. It was vending machine fast food, but created in an era and by people who weren’t interested in cutting corners, or quality. They believed that delicious, filling, and affordable food could be had in a beautiful place that held to high values of hospitality.

But was it also the great levelling place in America where class, age, race, ethnicity didn’t matter?
The affectionate documentary The Automat, by first time filmmaker Lisa Hurwitz, and written and edited by Michael Levine,  makes the case that it was a place where social and financial barriers were non-existent. Race, age, class, financial status, none of these things mattered. 

Everyone was welcome to come sit, eat from its signature dishes, enjoy their signature coffee and a piece of pie at one of the marble tables in tidy, polished, elegant looking restaurant.  Kids, celebrities, working people on a lunch break all mixed in the world of the automat.

The film, traces the history of the Automat, from its founding in the late 1800’s by Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart - when it became a phenomenon that revolutionized the restaurant business in the U.S. -  to the closing of its final locations in 1991.  That’s a lot of American history, and in each decade The Automat played a distinct role in the social life of the community. 

Hurwitz spent eight years pulling the film together, speaking to a broad range of people, from the descendants of the founders to historians to a well of people who worked for the chain, in various capacities. The latter was expanded to include children and grandchildren of former employees, all of whom spoke about a corporate environment that valued staff, and treated them like family. 

Mel Brooks is prominently featured in the film. He talks with great affection how a boy from Brooklyn from a poor family would look forward to trips to the Automat. Brooks also wrote a song in tribute to the automat that plays over the closing credits. 

Also featured in the documentary are some recently departed luminaries - notably, Carl Reiner, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Colin Powell.  Wilson Good, Sr., the first Black Mayor of Philadelphia, talks about how Horn and Hardart’s Automat provided a meeting place for members of the Black community to organize their entry and participation in politics.  

 Howard Schultz, the co-founder of the Starbucks, speaks to the influence of the chain on his own life and career, describing how the environment, “the theatre, the romance and sense of discovery that existed in the automat,” inspired his vision for the coffee chain.

Given its century-plus life span, the life and times of Horn and Hardart’s Automat restaurants, is a lot of story. And Hurowitz does it thoroughly in 78 minutes,  in a wonderfully evocative way. 

The Automat, written by Michael Levine, directed by Lisa Hurwitz. featuring Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Opening in theatres, April 22, 2022