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For the Edward Hopper painting, see Automat (painting).

Typical interior of a Horn & Hardart's Automat at the height of their popularity (1930).

An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by coin-operated and bill-operated vending machines. Originally, the machines took only nickels but modern automat vending machines accept bills. In the original format, a cashier would sit in a change booth in the center of the restaurant, behind a wide marble counter with five to eight rounded depressions in it. She would serve many customers at once, taking their money from the depressions and dropping nickels in its place. The diner would insert the required number of coins and then slide open a window to remove the meal, which was generally wrapped in waxed paper. The machines were filled from the kitchen behind. While most automats have since closed, a few still exist today, such as a New York City automat that opened in 2006 [1]^[1] and a number that still exist in The Netherlands.

Unlike modern vending machines, food was served on real crockery with metal utensils, and drinks in glasses.

Inspired by the Quisiana Automat in Berlin, the first automat in the U.S. was opened June 12, 1902 at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia by Horn & Hardart. [2] The automat was brought to New York City in 1912 and gradually became part of popular culture in northern industrial cities. Horn & Hardart was the most prominent automat chain.

Edward Hopper's painting, Automat, 1927.

The format was threatened by the growth of suburbs and the rise of fast food restaurants catering to cars (with their drive-thru windows) in the 1950s; by the 1970s their remaining appeal was strictly nostalgic. Another contributing factor to their demise was undoubtedly the inflation of the 1960s and 70s, making the food too expensive to be bought conveniently with coins, and in a time before bill acceptors commonly appeared on vending equipment.

Another form of the Automat was used on some passenger trains, the last United States example being an Automat car on Amtrak's short-lived service to Janesville, Wisconsin in 2001. These were limited by mechanical problems, since the machines weren't necessarily intended for the bumpy ride on the rails, and state laws that prohibited alcoholic beverages from being sold by a machine.

The automat food format is still popular in some other countries. For example, FEBO stores in The Netherlands, where the automat is called Automatiek, provide a variety of burgers, sandwiches, and krokets in vending machines that are back-loaded from a kitchen.

• The setting and title for Edward Hopper's painting Automat.
• The workings of an automat were shown in Easy Living (1937).
• In The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), Charles Coburn got his finger caught in an Automat window offscreen.
• An automat is featured in Ladies' Man (1947), at least according to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039544/ IMDB.

Manny and Celso in an automat in Rubacava, from Grim Fandango.

• "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend", sung by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), contains the line A kiss may be grand but won't pay the rental on your humble flat or help you at the Automat.
• In The Apartment (1960), Jack Lemmon says to Shirley MacLaine that last Christmas [he] had an early dinner at the Automat.
• In That Touch of Mink (1962) Doris Day’s friend Audrey Meadows stocks the machines in an automat, and there is a lengthy (humorous) scene set there.
• In Hercules in New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hercules declares the food he and Arnold Stang obtain at a New York City Automat "fit for the Gods".
• The Ultravox song My Sex includes the lyric "Sometimes I'm an automat".
• Tom and Charlie make plans in the Horn & Hardart in the 1990 film Metropolitan.
• The exterminators eat in an Automat in the 1991 film Naked Lunch
• An Automat is featured in the 1998 film Dark City.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a replicator-based self-service restaurant called the Replimat, as a play on Automat.
• In a 1967 episode ("It's a Mod Mod World," Part 1) of the sitcom That Girl, struggling actress Ann Marie (played by Marlo Thomas) was able to have a cheap lunch by first buying a bowl of hot water and some crackers from an automat. She then created a rough approximation of tomato soup by pouring freely available ketchup into the hot water. Her efforts catch the eye of a famous English photographer, which establishes the premise for a two-part episode.
• In the LucasArts game Grim Fandango (1998), Manny Calavera's client Celso ends up working at an automat in Rubacava, which Manny eventually turns into a casino.
• In the original play of "The Odd Couple" by Neil Simon in which Speed says "Are you listening to this? Martha and Gertrude in the Automat."
• The main character Ralphie visits a Horn and Hardart's in New York in the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd.
• In Thirty Day Princess (1934) Sylvia Sidney's character is seen stealing food from an Automat.

• BAMN! The New Automat
• Automat Is About To Return in the East Village
• Automat's Plate With Destiny
• Automat machines for sale
• The Automat - The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece
• a Diane Arbus photo, Two Ladies at Automat (New York City, 1966)