Horn & Hardart was a food services company noted for operating the first automats in New York City.
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History
German-born, New Orleans-raised, Frank Hardart and Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861-1941) opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia on December 22, 1888. The vest-pocket (11 x 17 feet) lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools. By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style French-drip coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction. Word of the coffee spread, and the business flourished. They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898.[1]
Rise and decline
Horn and Hardart launched their first Automat in Philadelphia on June 12, 1902, borrowing the concept of automatic food service from a successful German establishment, Berlin's Quisiana Automat.[2] The first New York Automat opened in Times Square July 2, 1912. Later that week, another opened at Broadway and East 14th Street, near Union Square.
In 1924, Horn & Hardart opened retail stores to sell prepackaged automat favorites. Using the ad slogan "Less Work for Mother," the company popularized the notion of easily served "take-out" food as an equivalent to "home-cooked" meals.[3][4]
The Horn & Hardart Automats were particularly popular during the Depression era when their macaroni and cheese, baked beans and creamed spinach were staple offerings. In the 1930s, union conflicts resulted in vandalism, as noted by Christopher Gray in The New York Times:
- In 1932 the police blamed members of the glaziers union for vandalism against 24 Horn & Hardart and Bickford's restaurants in Manhattan, including the one at 488 Eighth Avenue. Witnesses said that a passenger in a car driving by used a slingshot to damage and even break the plate glass show windows. Glaziers union representatives had complained about nonunion employees installing glass at the restaurants.[5]
By the time of Horn's death in 1941, the business had 157 retail shops and restaurants in the Philadelphia and New York areas and served 500,000 patrons a day.[6] During the 1940s and the 1950s, more than 50 New York Horn & Hardart restaurants served 350,000 customers a day. The chain remained popular into the 1960s with automats, sit-down waitress service restaurants, cafeterias and bakery shops. During the late 1960s, consultants attempted to focus attention on automats with interior decoration relevant to surrounding neighborhoods; thus, the Automat on 14th Street was decorated with psychedelic posters.
The eateries began to close with the rise of fast-food restaurants. In 1972, August Guterman purchased the company. By the mid-1970s, at some locations, they replaced former automats with Burger King franchises.[7] Horn & Hardart further expanded into the fast food arena in 1981, with its acquisition of the Bojangles' Famous Chicken n' Biscuits chain, which it sold to a California investment company in 1990 for $20 million.[8] The last New York Horn & Hardart Automat (on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue) closed in April 1991.[9]
Augustin Hardart was the last of three generations to manage the Automats, and his daughter, Marianne Hardart, collaborated with columnist Lorraine B. Daily to document the family history in The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece (Clarkson Potter, 2002).[4]
Revivals
Horn & Hardart attempted to revive the automat concept with their Dine-O-Mat restaurant in New York. It closed in 1989 after less than two years in operation. In a recent revival, the Horn & Hardart name was used for a now defunct chain of coffee shops in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Horn & Hardart Coffee Co. shuttered its last coffee shop in 2005.
Bamn!, a modern take on the current automats used in the Netherlands, was located in New York's East Village at 37 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, but has since closed.
Automatic food service
These cafeterias featured prepared foods behind small glass windows and coin-operated slots, beginning with buns, beans, fish cakes and coffee. Eventually, they served lunch and dinner entrees, such as beef stew and Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. It developed into a self-service chain of restaurants that flourished in the city for nearly a century.[1]
Carolyn Hughes Crowley described the appeal of the Automats:
- In huge rectangular halls filled with shiny, lacquered tables, women with rubber tips on their fingers—"nickel throwers," as they became known—in glass booths gave customers the five-cent pieces required to operate the food machines in exchange for larger coins and paper money. Customers scooped up their nickels, then slipped them into slots in the Automats and turned the chrome-plated knobs with their porcelain centers. In a few seconds the compartment next to the slot revolved into place to present the desired cold food to the customer through a small glass door that opened and closed. Diners picked up hot foods at buffet-style steam tables. The word "automat" comes from the Greek automatos, meaning "self-acting." But Automats weren’t truly automatic. They were heavily staffed. As a customer removed a compartment’s contents, a behind-the-machine human quickly slipped another sandwich, salad, piece of pie or coffee cake into the vacated chamber.[10]
Radio and television
Beginning in 1927, Horn & Hardart sponsored a radio program, The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, a variety show with a cast of children (including some who later as adults became well-known performers). The program was first heard on WCAU Radio in Philadelphia, hosted by Stan Lee Broza. It was broadcast on NBC Radio in New York during the 1940s and 1950s. The original New York host was Paul Douglas, followed by Ralph Edwards and finally Ed Herlihy. The television premiere of The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour was on WCAU TV in Philadelphia in 1948, followed by WNBT(TV) in New York in 1949, telecast on Sunday mornings. The hosts were Broza in Philadelphia and Herlihy in New York.
Horn & Hardart in popular culture
- Automat (1927) is a painting by Edward Hopper which depicts a lone woman in an empty Automat at night. There are no signs of activity on the street outside. This adds to the sense of loneliness and has caused the painting to be associated with the concept of urban alienation. One critic observed that "the woman's eyes are downcast and her thoughts turned inward."[11] Another critic has described her as "gazing at her coffee cup as if it were the last thing in the world she could hold on to."[12] In 1995, Time magazine used Automat as the cover image for a story about stress and depression in the 20th century.[13]
- The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has an ornate 35-foot Automat section, complete with mirrors, marble and marquetry, from Philadelphia’s 1902 Horn & Hardart.
- In November 2002, the Museum of the City of New York held a special Automat centennial exhibition featuring photographs, artifacts, original furniture, china and vending machine panels.
- "Colored Spade" from the Broadway musical Hair mentions Horn & Hardart in its lyrics.
- Concerto for Horn and Hardart is a classical music parody written by Peter Schickele, one of many which he attributes to the fictional composer P.D.Q. Bach.
- In 1965, for the occasion of its premier performance in Carnegie Hall, a special musical instrument, the "Hardart," was created by the eminent harpsichord builder Wolfgang Zuckermann. It was a plucking keyboard instrument that offered up hot coffee on command from a movable panel.
- An Automat of the future was featured in the science fiction musical Just Imagine (1930).
- A character in the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally... says he first met his wife at an Automat.
- Horn & Hardart is mentioned in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.
- Ruth Reichl's novel Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998) briefly discusses a sale on deli foods at Horn & Hardart's.
- An automat is briefly shown in the film Hercules in New York.
- Charlie Callas mentions Horn and Hardat during an appearance on "The Tonight Show" in 1971 shown here at about 32 seconds in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qJe9U1mN9Y
- A Horn & Hardart is used prominently at the beginning of That Touch of Mink starring Cary Grant and Doris Day at 6:34 in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnvY-6K3rH4.
References
- ^ a b Find a Grave: Frank Hardart Sr.
- ^ "Lunch from Slot Machine," The Washington Post, Jun 29, 1902, pg. 35.
- ^ Find A Grave: Joseph V. Horn
- ^ a b Hardart, Marianne and Lorraine B. Daily The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart's Masterpiece. Clarkson Potter, 2002.
- ^ Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes," The New York Times, June 3, 2001.
- ^ "Joseph V. Horn, Automat Chain Co-Founder Dies," The Washington Post, October 15, 1941, pg. 23.
- ^ "Closing the Automat Door," by Peter Mikelbank, The Washington Post, September 7, 1975, pg. 135.
- ^ Acquisitions, The Washington Post, August 30, 1990, pg. C2.
- ^ "Slices of History: At New York's Last Automat only the Ambiance is the Same," by David Streitfeld, The Washington Post, April 24, 1988, pg. 66.
- ^ Crowley, Carolyn Hughes. "Meet Me at the Automat," Smithsonian Magazine, August 2001.
- ^ Iversen, Margaret: Edward Hopper. Tate Publishing, 2004, p. 57.
- ^ Schmied, Wieland: Edward Hopper: Portraits of America. Translated by John William Gabriel. Munich: Prestel, 1999, p. 76.
- ^ Time magazine, August 28, 1995
See also
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External links
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