The Automat

Horn & Hardart restaurant history served up with a big slice of nostalgia. 

Ruth Remembers: The Automat on 170 W 72nd St.

Chrome dolphin coffee spouts inspired by Italian fountains. Little glass doors illuminating slices of lemon meringue pie. Carrara marble and eloquent stained glass. Like the origins of the movie theatre, the Automat was another so-called ‘palace of the people’; an ornate eatery full of style and panache. Once the largest restaurant chain in the United States, the last remaining Horn & Hardart Automat on the Manhattan corner of 3rd Ave and 42nd Street, closed its doors on 11 April, 1991. Director Lisa Hurwitz of A Slice of Pie Productions composes a flavourful love letter to what was once an NYC institution in her warm-hearted documentary The Automat.

Though strongly associated with New York, the company had its origins in Philadelphia. Philly native Joe Horn put an ad in the newspaper searching for a business partner and caught the attention of New Orleans-raised Frank Hardart, who wanted to bring French-drip chicory coffee to the east coast. Following the success of their luncheonette, they imported patented vending machine technology from Germany in 1902 and launched the first coin-operated Automat. Horn & Hardart soon expanded to New York in 1912, with the opening of the Times Square Automat. Automats were the place to get an affordable home-style meal and they met the growing demand during the Great Depression and later World War II. They became true melting pots where everyone was welcome, regardless of race or rank. Though long gone, the impact of the Automat is thoroughly seared into the pop culture of its time. The Irving Berlin tune ‘Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee’ was inspired by it and the Automat was frequently featured on film. 

An intertitle from the 1925 silent The Early Bird read, “The Automat - - where nickels are worn so thin the Indian looks like he’s riding the buffalo.” Automat appearances in film include the pre-code Sadie McKee with Joan Crawford, Easy Living with Jean Arthur, The Catered Affair with Debbie Reynolds, and perhaps most notably, That Touch of Mink with Doris Day, where Gig Young’s sandwich comes with a slap! Francis Ford Coppola went to the Automat with his 1966 UCLA thesis film You’re a Big Boy Now and years after the Automat’s demise, it was recreated for 1998’s neo-noir Dark City.

The experience of the Automat is felt vicariously through ‘trip down memory lane’ interviews, including conversations with the late Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Carl Reiner. Hurwitz’s off-the-cuff style shares moments that wouldn’t normally make the final cut, lending a behind-the-scenes feel to the first-person accounts. Complemented by generous archive footage, this delectable doc is pure cinematic comfort food and legend Mel Brooks is the coconut on the custard pie. Brooks even performs an original ode, ‘At the Automat’. Though Horn & Hardart are no more, the automat-style restaurant may be set to make a comeback in our contactless era. The Brooklyn Dumpling Shop has opened automats in Manhattan’s east village and in Horn & Hardart’s hometown Philadelphia. The automat even recently returned to Times Square in the form of a digital-only Taco Bell. ¿Yo quiero Automat?

CHAD KENNERK

Featuring  Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elliott Gould, Colin Powell, Carl Reiner, Howard Schultz, Wilson Goode, Marianne Hardart. 

Dir Lisa Hurwitz, Pro Lisa Hurwitz, Screenplay Michael Levine, Ph Philip Lucas, Ed Michael Levine and Russell Greene, Music Hummie Mann, Sound Steve Heinke. 

A Slice of Pie Productions-A Slice of Pie Productions.
79 mins. USA. 2021. US Rel: 18 February 2022. No Cert.