Automats and restaurants

I'm new to town, but old enough to remember going to an automat as a kid.

Tell us more.

My Mother took us on a train to Atlantic City. My brother couldn't go he had broken his arm. We stopped at Horn and Hardart in Philadelphia. We ate at the Automat. The food was behind glass windows. The restaurant was crowded, but so are my memories.

I was fortunate enough to once meet Peter Schickele (his real name). He was giving a concert at the university I was attending and I think it was probably around 1969. One of the instruments he used was a bicycle siren. When was the last time you heard a bicycle siren? Left-handed sewer flutes aren't too common either.

vitanola said:

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Outstanding! Thanks

"Horn and Hardart" -- Ira Levin has Guy Woodhouse, Rosemary's treacherous husband, mention his fondness for their pie in Rosemary's Baby. I seem to remember Bill Cosby mentioning "the Automat" in one of his comedy routines, too.

H&H sponsored a long-running Sunday morning radio program in New York featuring juvenile talent, with a theme song that annoyed three generations of listeners:

"Less work for Mother!
Let's give her a hand!
Less work for Mother!
And she'll understand!
She's your greatest treasure!
Just make her life a pleasure!
Less work for Moth-er deeeeeeeeeeear!"

Here's a great restaurant where you can still get a good cup of coffee. Ernie's in Gettysburg, PA serving classic dishes in a 1930s era diner.

I posted this in the "Other Cultures" thread a month or so ago, but fits well here:

I lived 6 blocks from the last Automat in NYC before it closed in '91 (now it's a Gap, thank God, the city needed another one of those).

It was running on fumes those last years, but I still frequented it both for the history (heck, I'm not on Fedora Lounge by coincidence) and I enjoy(ed) being left alone and that was the place to do it as, if you had the right change, you didn't have to interact with anyone and could buy your food, sit alone at a table (it wasn't crowded in those days) and eat in peace. I use to bring a book or the newspapers - eat, read and be contentedly alone.

And if you did have to interact, it was quick and efficient for change and quirky/fun if you had to talk to someone through the dispensing machine (you could ask for something if they hadn't restocked it yet). I was just old enough, just starting to see the "bigger picture," the sweep of history (maybe that's a bit much) to understand that something was happening / an era was passing when that Automat closed.

I still walk by the site all the time and almost always get a brief pang of regret / nostalgia. And it is right down the street from where one of the last (I think) Howard Johnson restaurant was (a behemoth of a place - seated hundreds, tables and counters, and was an Art Deco marvel in the lobby of a giant pre-war building). Sometimes I feel like I'm a ghost walking through a ghost town when my mind sees all these places that aren't here anymore.

Obviously you miss half the point of going to a bar.

BlueTrain said:

Obviously you miss half the point of going to a bar.

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I don't always want to be alone - although, some bars are great for that as well - but pick and choose my spots. In my single days, I always had a neighborhood bar or two I could hit for some friendly engagement with the bartenders and regulars.

Even now, my girlfriend and I frequent a few local water holes, in part, because we like that we know the staff and some regulars, but it's all very low key.

There was a time when I did things like that but that was 40 years ago. But we go out more than we did at first. I've mentioned before somewhere that bars are now family friendly. Technically, they're restaurants but right in the middle is a real bar. Think of a sports bar.