Horn & Hardart Automats-- a Philly business success story

[phillyaggie]

A few weeks ago, I was on one of the Architectural Walking Tours (Littlest Streets of Fitler Square) hosted by the Preservation Alliance. The tour leader showed off this fairly big manse (in a neighborhood that's mostly made up of small, workers' quarters from 100+ years ago) and said that was the home of the founder of the famous Horn & Hardart Company. I had no idea what that was, never heard of it, so I asked. A few people on the tour actually knew about it and chimed in. Turns out, it has quite a fascinating history of invention and entrepreneurship. The concept was developed here in Philly (borrowed from something similar in Germany) and got very popular in NYC. The restaurants lasted until the 1950s and a few revivals since then couldn't cut it.

Here is a really fun segment about the history of these automats... and the social story it tells us now. The fact that Horn & Hardart hired blacks more than other companies at that time... only to put them behind the automats so as to never be seen or heard from, and paid lower wages. The fact that the damn automat could only take nickles and no other change. The most basic fact that the "auto" part of the automat was still really driven by human power in the back end... This stuff is amazing to get to know/learn...

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If the above string doesn't work, you can click on the link below:
Episode 154: Benh Zeitlin, All-American Etiquette, and the Automat | The Dinner Party Download from American Public Media

Click on the segment that talks about the automat (Main Course: Lunching at the Automat)


There is also a good wiki article about Horn & Hardart:

Horn & Hardart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[thoth]

This is one of the things that really sticks out to me when researching the city's past. I think it seems like a small thing to many people, but to me it would be like jumping 25 years into the future and no one knowing what a Rite Aid or (maybe more appropriately) a newsstand was. It seemed like a unique thing that populated virtually every neighborhood for a time and then was totally wiped off the map with a decade or two. It feels bizarre to me that I won't ever experience that, as mundane as it may have been.

[OffenseTaken]

I've always been fascinated by these places. I used to hear old-timers in New York make passing references to a "Horn & Hardart" and it made no sense, kind of like when they called the 4-5-6 the "IRT."

It feels bizarre to me that I won't ever experience that, as mundane as it may have been.

There's a chain of shops in Holland that is almost an automat: there's a kitchen in the back that's staffed by people (open to the front, so you can talk to them if there's a problem), but ordinarily you just stick €1 or €2 coins into slots and pull the food out from plexiglass doors. The food ranks above microwaved vending-machine fare in quality.

I've only seen them in Dutch train stations, but they seemed to do brisk business, so it could expand in this direction.

[Titus]

This is one of the things that really sticks out to me when researching the city's past. I think it seems like a small thing to many people, but to me it would be like jumping 25 years into the future and no one knowing what a Rite Aid or (maybe more appropriately) a newsstand was. It seemed like a unique thing that populated virtually every neighborhood for a time and then was totally wiped off the map with a decade or two. It feels bizarre to me that I won't ever experience that, as mundane as it may have been.

Well they were wonderful. Spic and span clean and the food always decent if not adventuresome and inexpensive. Their buildings were generally of high design as well. They are surely missed by many people.

[Litter Box]

Well they were wonderful. Spic and span clean and the food always decent if not adventuresome and inexpensive. Their buildings were generally of high design as well. They are surely missed by many people.

I remember the beef pies and rice pudding with big raisins. Went to the H & H at 52nd and Market hundreds of times in the 60's. Good memories.

[devilspocket]

I remember the beef pies and rice pudding with big raisins. Went to the H & H at 52nd and Market hundreds of times in the 60's. Good memories.

And the mac & cheese and creamed spinach. My sister reminded me today that I took her to one on Chestnut St. in 1970 as if it were a tourist attraction, which it was.

[Colin P. Varga]

There used to be a H&H at the site of the present "Foods on First" on Arch next to the Elkins Mem. YMCA. Under the present sign is the ghost of the H&H sign.

[CountFunkula]

I remember the pumpkin pie at HH's. Yum. Also...towards the end, the HH in Bala Cynwyd had the oldest waitresses in the restaurant industry. You felt badly having them bring your food because they were so frail. The automat format was long gone at that point.

[peetah]

In the village near NYU up in Manhattan there's been an automat-like place open for a few years now:
BAMN!!
It does pretty brisk business (and is a good place to dump your dollar coins), and features a counter to order some foods that might not hold up well in the automat machinery as well.

[darthsinatra]

One of my earliest and therefore foggiest memories is going to H&H at Broad and Chestnut (there was one on that corner where Capital Grille is, right?) with my parents during a weekday lunch hour. Wish I could remember it better but I was very little.

[Jayfar]

One of my earliest and therefore foggiest memories is going to H&H at Broad and Chestnut (there was one on that corner where Capital Grille is, right?) with my parents during a weekday lunch hour. Wish I could remember it better but I was very little.

I remember one of the last H&Hs to close in the early 80s was on the SE corner of Broad & Walnut, where Robinson Luggage is now (and I think the adjacent space as well).

Further south on the block, where Rite Aid is now, was the big Bain's cafeteria, predecessor to the Bain Delis.

[snick33]

Does anyone know the locations of H&H? Which ones were automats??

Here are a few that I know of and others have commented being there previously:

Building still here:
**818-820 Chestnut – 1902 original, still there, redid 1936, final automat open 1968
**1429 Arch – now Foods on First; still can see ghost sign
**6828 Market – still there
**4670 Frankford (near Oxford under El at Margaret stop)– still there, food center
**12th and market ~1115 Market (left of reading terminal entrance); now Dunkin

Gone but I have seen pics of the original:
*1001 Locust – gone, commissionary
*217 S Broad – gone, parking garage
*16th & Chestnut – gone, commissionary, closed 1965
*911 market – gone
*101 S Juniper – gone, parking garage, second automat location in Drury Building

Others?:
broad and walnut – cafeteria; now robinson’s luggage
broad and chestnut – where capital grill is
8th and Market
16th and Market (3 Penn Center)
Cottman and large – opened 1958, 85th restaurant
19th and Chestnut cafeteria
40th and Market?
Roosevelt blvd?
60th and market
54th and CityLine
K&A

[Jayfar]

*16th & Chestnut – gone, commissionary, closed 1965

You're probably referring to the Building that stood on northwest corner (now Liberty Place), but until sometime in 1981 they were on the northeast corner, in the building that became a Rite Aid and now Kids Place.

[snick33]

You're probably referring to the Building that stood on northwest corner (now Liberty Place), but until sometime in 1981 they were on the northeast corner, in the building that became a Rite Aid and now Kids Place.

From Fieldnotesphilly

[Litter Box]

The H & H on the N/E corner of 52nd and Market Streets was part Automat and part ready made food kept warm with hot water/steam. This was in the 60's.