(And no way in the world this was originally published as late as 1993)
April 6: This is what the site of Manhattan’s flagship Automat looks like today (well, yesterday, technically)
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Comics I Don't Understand 
As someone approaching half a century, I’ve personally never been in an Automat, nor even seen one. I’ve seen them in pictures and older movies though and understand how they work. (And I’ve REALLY wanted to go to one since I was about 10).
That said, I don’t think understanding how an Automat works is required for the joke. This joke could as easily been told using a cheeseburger on a chair while going to the self-serve soda/pop/coke (pick your region’s vernacular) dispenser.
I do remember a Playboy cartoon where the buxom attendant behind the dispensers got a little too close to the empty compartment at chest level…..
“(And no way in the world this was originally published as late as 1993)”
It probably was. Before 1993, it was published as a black&white. Then a color version was made in 1993.
As for the title question, back when I was in university, the dining hall had a bank of little refrigerated compartments with individual servings loaded into it at the start of mealtime. It was all-you-can-eat, so no pocket change required, and not quite the same thing.
Perhaps the fact that most people haven’t been in an Automat is a feature, not a bug. It sets the locale as NYC (or, generically, the Big City). Most of us don’t have a vista outside our home that includes (insert famous architectural landmark)… so movies use such landmarks to establish the setting right away. I’ve never been to NYC, but I know enough about it to recognize the skyline. I have been in Portland, so I recognize the fact that Portland’s skyline doubles for “Central City” in “The Flash”, except that they digitally add S.T.A.R. Labs to the south waterfront.
True, James, but the Automat was long gone by 1993.
No, knowing exactly how an Automat worked isn’t necessary for the understanding of the strip.
THAT BEING SAID, though, the culture of the Automat is sort of relevant: it was a place where, routinely, a rich snooty lady and the likes of Jeff, would be rubbing elbows.
The only automat I’ve ever seen was in the movie “Dark City,” which was intentionally styled to be an eternal 1950’s environment.
I remember being in an automat once when I was very very young. But maybe it is a false memory.
However, there are some new automats in San Francisco.
https://www.eatsa.com/restaurants/
Automat is one thing I think must people alive have never experienced but everyone has read about or heard reference.
Thanks, Woozy, that makes me feel VERY old.
I have been to a genuine Horn & Hardart’s Automat in NYC. A couple times. The one I remember was sort of across the street from Grand Central.
My recollection is that the Grand Central restaurant, the last remaining Horn & Hardart, wasn’t a genuine Automat: they were already at the stage where they were trying to recapture the old ambiance, and it was more Automat-ish.
I recognize the possibility that I’m entirely wrong about this.
This would have been in 1965 or ’66, so my recollections are not ironclad! But I think it was both a table-service restaurant and an Automat section.
I grew up in Miami and had never been north in the winter. Since it seemed likely that I could soon be going away to college somewhere north, I was sent up to visit with my NYC (well, Queens) relatives in the winter break of my junior or senior year of HS.
And indeed, I learned something about snow immediately upon stepping out of the Eastern Airlines terminal building at JFK. I had seen all those pictures of snowflakes in science textbooks, with that striking 6-fold symmetry. And I thought you could catch a falling snowflake on your finger, and look at it and easily see that pattern with the naked eye. Of course I knew the pictures were magnifications, but didn’t understand in a practical way how much. Gee, what a cheat that had been!
From their apartment in Queens, to go into the city (“Huh? Isn’t this part of New York City?” you would take a Q-## bus (Q15? Q12?) to “downtown” Flushing where the subway station was, and take the World’s Fair line into Grand Central. I was encouraged to do a little exploring on my own, but mostly went with my 2-years-older cousin. And at some point ate at that Horn & Hardarts.
I think it was an automat; Market Street 1965.
I’m geezerish enough to have eaten at an automat when I was very young.
I know this comic is set in the US, I think, but automats are quite popular in Amsterdam to this day. They’re called ‘Febo’. I’m sure you can look it up if you’re interested.
Wikipedia says that the final Horn and Hardart closed in 1991, but that Denmark and Spain have similar restaurant concepts operating today.
I should add this into the mix: after the 60s, not all Horn & Hardart restaurants were Automats. Where I grew up, just north of NYC, we had a H&H that was just a cafeteria.
I mean, I’ve bought food from a vending machine… that’s the core concept, right?
In 1955, when I was a mere pup, my mother took my brother an I to New York City, and made a point to take us to a Horn & Hardart for lunch. I’m pretty sure I was familiar with them from TV and movies, but it was still pretty cool for a kid to pick out his own food through itty bitty doors. (Well, it was the fifties, we were pretty easily entertained.)
I, too, have eaten at an Automat, in Manhattan. This would have been in 1965 or so.
1965? Oh, that was YOU??
As James Pollack points out, the Automat lingers in miniature form in vending machines — particularly the ones that vend sandwiches and the like. Primary difference is that nobody’s refilling them from an on-site kitchen in the back. A few decades ago I visited one of the Smithsonian Institute museums and they had what seemed to be functioning Automat windows in the snack bar. The restrooms had wall displays of pipes and plumbing fixtures from the past.
Read a piece somewhere about the depression. The Automat had free condiments and hot water for tea. If one were careful one could manage a free dish of tomato (catsup) soup.
I personally remember when cafeterias thrived outside of schools and other institutions. Saul Steinberg had a cartoon of patrons selecting dishes for their tray, finally taking a little lamp and flower vase for ambiance.
Cafeterias still exist, after a fashion, but insistently brand themselves as buffets.
I would say that the difference between vending machines being stocked with non-perishables on a daily or weekly basis, and Automat windows being continually restocked with freshly-made food is a pretty significant difference.
The only place I have encountered Automats is in old SF. Wasn’t ever clear to me that there’d be people restocking continuously, as opposed to reloading vending machines every few hours or days. (Or robotically producing sandwiches from stocks refilled on similar schedules, because obviously that’s what the future was going to hold.) Which is a pretty significant difference in terms of whether one might actually want to eat at such a place.
still it’s interesting that the model’s mostly disappeared; I guess mcfood drove it out…
I remember the automat. The Horn and Hardart on 42nd St went into the 1980s at least. I used to eat there.
But yeah, it’s not 1993, and Pierre S DeBeaumont never actually wrote a Mutt and Jeff in his life. This is Al Smith, who died in 1986.
Just looked it up, the 42nd St one closed in 1991. That was the last one.
Okay, I’ve heard the term “automat”, and I watched ‘Deep Space Nine’ with its “replimat” on the Promenade. But that’s about it. I really feel out of the loop here.
You and me both Powers.
M.A. says:
“You gets no bread with one meatball!”
ignatzz: Do you mean last automat, or last Horn and Hardart automat? Mona pointed out that there are new automats in SF. Although this somehow looks too sleek to be called an “automat”:
Powers, I’d forgotten about that.
The first time I saw the replimat, I thought “Automat for the 24th century.”
I don’t suppose Peter Schickele performs P.D.Q. Bach’s “Concerto for Horn and Hardart” much any more.
The discussion about the setting is very entertaining, but hasn’t anyone noticed that this guy is a colossal idiot? He already placed the pie on the table (in the second panel). What kind of a jerk would move the pie from the table to the chair? Leaving it on the table would be enough to indicate that the place was already occupied.
A pie on a table is quite visible, and therefore might not be
there when you return. A pie on a chair, especially if you push
it in, is not visible and is more likely to remain. Except, of
course, if someone sits on it.
” Leaving it on the table would be enough to indicate that the place was already occupied.”
Depends on how aggressive the bussing staff are. Dishes left on an unoccupied table might not still be there when you come back.
If there are people there hungry enough to make ketchup soup,
there are people there desperate enough to assume that anything
at an untenanted table is a leftover, and take it. Staff taking
it hadn’t occurred to me.
“If there are people there hungry enough to make ketchup soup, there are people there desperate enough to assume that anything at an untenanted table is a leftover”
In that environment, the staff won’t leave leftovers, real or perceived, to keep the riffraff from congregating.
“Automats, like dinosaurs and Loni Anderson, went out of business many years ago.” This quote is from the 7/28/17 Zippy the Pinhead toon.
Of course he could just keep the pie in his hand.
When Robert and I started going to the Smithsonian History Museum in Washington DC there was a H & H wall of food windows as a display on one wall. Per the exhibition (I remember this as I thought it was a NYC thing only) the first one was opened in Philly.
I know I went to them a number of times as a child but two visits stand out in memory. When I was about 5 or so my uncle got engaged and his wife to be decided to get on my good side and be friends by taking me to a children’s show and then to an automat. This sticks in my mind as my mother and grandmother (uncle was mom’s brother) were shocked that my aunt to be let me have spaghetti and corn for lunch. The other time I remember is when my (accounting) boss took me there for coffee and while we were there I got my first salary raise from him.
I did include one in a book I wrote and drew for my little sister. The girl in the story has an adventure with each of her four big brothers and one takes her to “the city” and they eat in an automat.
In the 1960s (Touch of MInk) and 1970s (Midnight Cowboy) they were still being featured in movies.
What about kuru kuru sushi ?
“What about kuru kuru sushi ?”
Is that the one with the conveyor that runs around the restaurant and diners pluck off the dishes they want?
It is ! And the conveyor is refilled by the cook working in the middle.
Yeah, I saw that on TV. Really interesting.
Alas, the Automat is now a cheap souvenir shop (see original post)
I hope the kuru kuru sushi place doesn’t claim to be doing anything new: back in the 1960s, there was a restaurant out in Long Island (NY) that had electric trains running throughout the seating area, carrying food to your tables.
I have no recollection what sort of food it is — delicatessen, maybe? — but more than half a century later, I remember the food was delivered on flatbed cars.
There are (or at least were) two of those “revolving dish” sushi places at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, one of them in the basement of the mall, and the other not that far outside (on ground level). Both used color coding on the plates to indicate the price of the dish, and the sushi was reasonable, although not first-rate.
I personally know one such place in Brussels, and another in San Francisco (Japantown). Kuru kuru sushis have been around Japan for a while, I believe (world expo in Osaka ?).
There is a revolving dish sushi set up at a pan Asian buffet restaurant in Williamsburg, VA – the Peking Restaurant. It does not go through the seating area, but is one of the buffet areas. It was added when they redid their food assortment several years ago. (Nothing to do with the sushi set up, but we both liked the former food assortment better.)