Repackaging the Automat

My Osher Institute has offered a Zoom course on NY City for several years. I enrolled this year. Being sort of a New Yorker, though a suburban one who often mooched rides to The Bronx from his father or neighbor who worked there. I learned the subway system by my mid-teens. Moreover, class trips during public school brought me to the UN, Idlewild Airport when jets were new and its current namesake occupied the Oval Office, NY Philharmonic Youth Orchestra presentations, the World’s Fair in its two years of operation, and movies or Broadway shows related to history or Spanish classes. I’ve watched quiz shows being taped, and eventually appeared on one. Saw games at the Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium, and Yankee Stadium. Took my girlfriend, now beloved wife, to Lower Manhattan when she visited from Philadelphia where we attended college together. I’ve been around. But my mid-day destination, when available, was lunch at the Automat. Sometimes I would go with my mother, often by myself. That era from about third grade through college coincided with Horn and Hardart’s prime, or maybe slightly past. The windows that separated food from customers by then opened with dimes and quarters rather than nickels, and the adverse publicity of doubling the price of coffee from five to ten cents had largely blown over. I rarely drank coffee then. While my visits to Manhattan had many purposes from tourism to hosting my girlfriend, to recreation, if possible, I sought out those magical windows, especially that oval porcelain crock of macaroni and cheese.

As part of the course, and once at home before that, I viewed Lisa Hurwitz’ prize-winning documentary on The Automat. It featured celebrities, mostly New Yorkers some twenty years my senior from the outer boroughs who also had to make a special trips to Manhattan for a variety of purposes, yet sought out the Automat while there. The film made it clear that Horn & Hardart originated in Philadelphia and its successful CEOs continued operations from that city. By the time I arrive in Philadelphia for college, they had scaled back. I ate at their automat only one time. The place, or really places, captivated me then though I really knew nothing of its operation. The film exposed parts I never appreciated. Dedication of the founders to employees. People taking empty seats with strangers, which I might have done once or twice over the years. The breadth of people who ate there. My early visits with my parents took place in the pre-Civil Rights era. It never occurred to me that there were places that the couple of Black kids in my class would not have been able to go. H & H welcomed people of all backgrounds, remembered fondly by Black citizens who would occupy the highest governmental positions who would be treated courteously there when they were nobodies. At H&H, I never paid much attention to race, more to gender and the appearance of affluence or scruffiness, each represented. The restaurants were clean and orderly, though less clean during my college years. By my final lunches there, I saw fewer men with suits, probably fewer women treating their children, and more men who looked like they did not have an office or garment center to go to when they finished eating. The documentary addresses that decline. Most institutions have life cycles, from nascent startups, glory days, hard times not always managed in the best way. I could say this about the places that would eventually provide my livelihood, about the synagogues I joined, about my childhood neighborhoods, and some would argue about the USA. Only my universities seem on a continuous upswing that has not reversed in my adult lifetime, though even at elite institutions, adverse public exposure appears periodically.

The film had its nostalgic element, an experience that would remain imprinted. Burger Kings may now occupy the sites where the automats once stood, changing the Horn and Hardart Company from a revered restauranteur to a real estate franchiser. Processing people through as quickly as possible for cheap lunches may have become American Fast Food’s business model. The single destination experience has given way to the marketplace. However, dining at the automat created many experiences, an imprint that never disappears even when it becomes fragmented. The celebrities described it as a recurring destination, as it was for me. Whatever the purpose of my being in Manhattan, time could be carved out to put a few quarters in the dispensing window. That mac and cheese, whose recipe I have recycled to my own kitchen, was never my reason for coming to Manhattan. The automat decorated the afternoon, irrespective of my trip’s underlying purpose. The destination for others may have been a deli, a hot dog cart, even fast food. Sometimes these destinations are daily, sometimes they are treats, but they are always places to seek out. I have my own, often with elements of that H & H legacy. When I travel, coffee preferentially comes from WaWa which has an array of dispensers offering multiple varieties and the fixings counter to customize what I select that day. When traveling a little further, the stop at WaWa becomes a stop at Sheetz or Turkey Hill, also convenience stores but with more attractive food offerings. Those are recurrent experiences, the familiar even when hundreds of miles apart. And just like H & H, everyone goes there. Kids, seniors, unkempt people, Beautiful People who gas up their Beamers before customizing their hoagie and soda for the rest of their drive. These stops for coffee, a sandwich, a soft pretzel are not the purpose of my travel, yet I anticipate the few minutes I will devote to which variety of coffee and what additives are most attractive. Choosing the satisfying is part of my H & H legacy.

People sitting with people they don’t know survives as well. As a newlywed, a popular start-up gone national was Legal Seafood Restaurant roughly midway between the Harvard and MIT campuses. Red Sox players would eat there along with students. It always had a large crowd, so even on weeknights there were no open tables on arrival. People went to the bar on entry, got their beer and oysters, then sat down wherever an open seat appeared. The hostess would take your name, then eventually escort your party to one of many long tables, seating the party with whoever was already eating at the table. In a more persistent form, we have taverns and pubs that function in a similar way. When dining alone, whether treating myself to breakfast or at a professional meeting in an unfamiliar city, I would invariably seat myself at the bar or counter with whoever happened to be there or would come subsequently. One more persistent imprint. H & H insisted that people find open seats when empty tables had been depleted. They were right. I still do this, enhancing many a meal chatting with somebody who will disappear back into the population once the tab has been paid.

And of course, people go to receptions. Often seating is assigned, on some occasions with a better concept of compatibility than others. Other times there are open tables that fill. first come first served. Too often, the people at these gatherings self-segregate. People of title with other people of title, the surgeons with the other surgeons, trainees with other trainees. I think the randomness of who you share a meal with enhances the meal. Another residual that most H & H regulars would understand and value.

The film often displayed the owner’s benevolence to its employees. Some places I worked also regarded the people who made the operation go as worthy of company generosity. While the purpose of the organization is to generate profit, there were always funds set aside for receptions, performance bonuses, and other forms of appreciation to the people who worked there. That part of the Automat’s legacy has found its way to other places. I do not know if any workers were gifted stock to bring ownership, though H & H benefited from loyalty, as did I as a consumer who could depend on my mac and cheese or pie to be available for my coins and have the sensory qualities that I can seek out thirty years after their last closure. As the documentary indicated, H & H invested in technology, whether dispensing systems, change counters, serving protocols. Technology continues. I can now get their recipes that I remember most by a quick internet search, detailed enough to make myself. Close enough to recognize, never executed quite clone what their employees were able to offer.

While I can be somewhat Spartan and no-frills in my personal pursuits, being in a physically attractive place with personable people around me never goes unnoticed. That was the Automat experience. It gleamed. Fast Food and hotel buffets never gleam though cruise ship dining does. I learned from my days dispensing dimes and quarters into their slots that tables need to be attractive, serving dishes stylish, coffee dispensed into a cup with a handle with milk to be stirred with a spoon of metal. To this day, when I go to a coffee shop intending to sip what I purchase at a table rather than my car, I put my beverage in a porcelain cup, not a disposable one. I sit at an empty table, as coffee shop tables invariably have one empty, and select a chair that faces the interior of the shop or a window, never facing a wall. No matter how simple the meal, H & H model of sturdy tables, stone floors, and porcelain dishes remains what I seek out, though often fall short.

Often what you truly seek, you cannot realistically have, sometimes due to price, sometimes due to availability. I learned from some very wise people that when the house, car, or suit that I would like to have exceeds my budget, identify those features that make the high-end brand attractive and then shop downward focusing on more budget friendly surrogates with those features. At H & H the dining experience always fell within budget, as did a lot of competitors. But it had the high-end features: tasty, consistently prepared food, attractive setting, real dishes, self-service, and actually see what you will be eating through the window before selecting it. Those restaurants are no more. But the experience of seeking out places with parallel features remains in multiple forms. Replicating as much of the experience as the documentary conveyed, is not only possible but a personal imperative.