Automats in the 1960's

In this day of do-it-yourself EVERYthing, from pumping your own gas, to banking, to scanning your own groceries, it seems like the automat would fit right in.  If you've never heard of automats, you may wonder what I'm talking about.  Automats were cafeterias where you could walk in and choose and obtain your own food, pay for it, and sit and eat at a table and chair.  There were no waiters or waitresses, no hosts or hostesses.  It was truly "auto", as in "self".  It was liberating and novel at the time.  The automat was kind of like a smorgasbord, in that you could pick and choose your own food.  But whereas at a  smorgasbord , or all-you-can-eat restaurant, you pay one price no matter how much you might eat, at an automat you only paid for what you ate, a la carte.

A pair of men named Horn and Hardart started automats long before the 1960's.  They were a big thing in New York City, and also were in many other cities.  By the 1960's automats were on their last legs, fading out due to the proliferation of fast food restaurants, and by the 1970's they were all but extinct.

In the mid-1960's my grandfather had a work accident near Santa Barbara, California.  He was in the hospital for a little while, and eventually succumbed to his injuries.  When he was in the hospital, I have a memory of going there, and of having lunch in an automat.  My memory takes me to the hospital directly, but it may have been a separate business nearby.  It was a sad event, but my very young mind was not on injury or death. 

The automat was a huge room with simple tables and chairs set up all over for people to sit and dine.  Along the walls were small windows, and inside each window was a shelf with a plate or bowl of food on it.  Some of the cubbyholes were for hot food, such as entrees or soup, and others were for cold food, such as pies or cake.  There was just about any food your heart could desire, and it was made with care and good quality.  Each window had a label with the name of the food that was in it, along with a slot to pay for the item.  In order to pay, you took cash to a cashier, and got tokens to put in the slot. Once you paid you could pull the window up and take the plate of food from the shelf. It was so hard to decide; of course you couldn't choose everything they had!  But the novelty was so great, and the food so tempting!

When you were a customer in an automat, it seemed like everything was truly automatic.  The only employees you saw were the cashiers and the table cleaners.  I recall everything being very clean and well taken care of.  But behind those windows, there were many, many employees, always restocking windows when a customer took something from one.  There were people cooking and preparing food and then plating it.  Dishwashers too.

Automats seemed to me to be so modern!  I have often wished they would come back in vogue again.  Maybe some day that will happen.  Automats were another part of life in the United States that added wonderful style and character.  Did you ever eat in an automat?  Do you, like me, wish they'd come back?