My favorite quotation from that film was when they were rhapsodizing about the various pies at the automat, and Mel Brooks commented, “Lemon meringue not only looked big, but, you could smash your face into it.”
Here’s a few more:
Mel Brooks: “I wrote a whole song about those pies—if only they’d let me sing it in the kitchen!”; “If you had coffee from the Automat, it could fix anything—from a cold to heartbreak!”
Carl Reiner: “The Automat was heaven. You put in a nickel…and out slid pure joy!”
Elliott Gould: “The Automat taught me independence—you could eat on your own schedule.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “We’d sit for hours, sipping endless coffee for a nickel.”
Phyllis Magidson (historian): “It was like magic—insert a nickel, open a little window, and voilà!”
Howard Schultz (Starbucks founder): “I was captivated by the romance behind a cup of coffee.” (He credits his passion for Starbucks to the welcoming, communal vibe at Horn & Hardart.)
I read that the new owner plans to make the window lockers “tap & pay.” No more “nickel throwers” who amazed folks by reaching into the coin bucket and quickly pulling out exactly 20 nickels time after time.
I’m going to have to find that documentary; it sounds lovely.
There’s an episode of MASH where Radar reads a letter about someone having lunch at the Automat, and exclaims, “Oh, boy, I always wanted to do that!”
So did I, Radar.
As usual, the new owners completely miss a major point in the charm of the place they just bought.
Gotta make concessions for those young, can’t-wait-more-than-a-second whippersnappers, I suppose. 
Sure, it would be “charming” if I could just stick a nickel in the machine and get a cup of coffee. But the business isn’t going to make any money that way. Really, tap and go would be the modern-day equivalent.
They can’t harvest your info if you drop a nickle (or dime or quarter).
Just how many nickels do you think you would have to drop at a modern-day Horn & Hardart? How charming is it when you’re on your fortieth nickel?
Bill slot. I’m just saying a cash option should still be available.
I was more addressing the fact that investors buy a business, gut it of the very things that made it popular and then can’t figure out where the customers went.
I’m sure there are plans to reduce employee count and cheapening the food to the point of inedibility.
I hope that any plans to revive it include the Art Deco aesthetic.
Horn & Hardart also had retail stores where–for example–one could buy whole pies and cakes instead of slices. I believe these were retail outlets of the same bakeries that provided stock for the automats.
Another vote for Borders. The Mrs. worked there for many a year.
Also Radio Shack. Where else could I stop on my way home from work and buy a DPDT spring-loaded center off switch?
Agreed. Art Deco is a match made in heaven for eating establishments. Crisp, geometric lines, shiny chrome accents, and streamlined elegance scream both retro and futuristic at the same time—no matter what decade rolls around, it always looks fresh. Jersey diners have the same aesthetic—and they have great food, too.
Why waste money on something you plan on running into the ground?
Well, ideally, it wouldn’t be run into the ground, but something intended to remain for a good long time. Perhaps even at a Disney World type resort?
I remember the Automat / Horn and Hardart and their huge selection from when I first moved to NYC in the late 1980s, The tap and go model for a reboot version is understandable. But if $1 and $2 coins were in widespread use in the US as they are in Canada, that would make things simple for cash buyers.
I’ve seen tap-to-pay vending machines in places like hospitals that sell sodas, snacks, sandwiches and so forth. So the technology is already there.
Fry’s also got the fleet of Incredible Universe delivery trucks, but it took them forever to repaint the livery to say “Fry’s.” So for like ten years or so after they had gone out of business, it looked like Incredible Universe trucks were still making deliveries. Talk about cheap…
Tower Records were never a thing in Canada. Toronto had Sam’s The Record Man, which I liked but was much smaller.
Tokyo has a ten story Tower Records in Shibuya. I enjoyed the nostalgia of walking around it. They had a lot of hard to find jazz CDs at cheap prices too.
Godfather Pizza is still a thing in many small Ontario towns.
We used to go to Woolco every Saturday, the Canadian Woolworths. Much of my youthful allowance was spent on the wide variety of merchandise available for $1.44
I enjoyed the café too. I still occasionally make the delicious cheesecake which used lemon jello as an unlikely ingredient. Few cheesecakes are better! They disappeared when Wal-Mart came to Canada and bogarted all their retail space.
