The History of the Automat: The Restaurant of the Future! скачать в хорошем качестве

The History of the Automat: The Restaurant of the Future!

Ever heard of the Automat? The strange, short-lived, futuristic restaurant experience that took the world by storm in the early 20th century? Pretty soon, you will have! Transcript: Do you ever watch those old shows and movies that take place in the quote unquote, distant future of like, the early 2000s? The retro futuristic vibe is a fascinating look at what people thought technology would look like in a few decades and we’ve uh, missed the mark a little bit. What we lack in flying cars and hoverboards we more than make up with intrusive AI and credit scores. However, every now and again we find an invention that sparks that same childlike wonder, a vision of that chrome-filled, fancy future that was once dreamt of. These inventions never fly very far, but they’re a fascinating look nonetheless. Today, we’re going to talk about a short-lived invention that looked like it was taken right out of the distant future. The Automat. The automat was thought to be the restaurant of the future. No waiters, no workers to speak to, just you and a glass enclosed kiosk featuring rows and rows of freshly made meals, desserts, and drinks. What may sound like an advancement of the modern vending machine, is actually more of an ancestor. Vending machines existed in some ways, but were more focused on dispensing newspapers, postcards, things of the less-edible variety. While the automat carries the aura of a future-focused American vision, it actually didn’t originate in the states at all. While it was remarkably popular in the US, with 40 restaurants in New York City alone, and many many more across the rest of the country, the automat was actually born in 1895 in Berlin, Germany. Restaurants boasting the Automat design began slowly taking over northern Europe, until eventually having the technology licensed out to the owners of the soon-to-be largest Automat franchise in the world, Horn & Hardart. While we might find the experience to be impersonal, the patrons in 1912 found it to be absolutely enthralling. Customers would line up in droves to deposit coins into the chrome-plated vending machines, dispensing plates of meat, potatoes, pies, and hundreds of other items. While the Automat portrayed the illusion of automation and futurism, that was largely untrue behind the curtains. Horn & Hardart locations needed dozens of employees to be working rapidly behind the scenes to keep things going smoothly. Cooking the food, refilling the machines, washing dishes, basically everything beyond the transaction itself was handled by real people on the other side. Automat restaurants are often considered to be the primary inspiration behind modern fast food chains, and what a fitting inspiration it is considering they would be the ones to kill the automat. With inflation pushing prices higher and higher, Automat restaurants were paying their workers more, and had their costs rising higher too, the massive menu options made it even harder to keep stocked everything needed to continue running. On the other hand, what fast food joints lacked in futurism, they made up for in limited menus with their own unique tastes and flair, smaller work crews due to the more manageable setting, and cheaper ingredients as they weren’t exactly trying to market themselves as a fine-dining futuristic experience like the Automat attempted. The last Horn & Hardart would finally go out of business in 1991, and the only place you can see what they looked like in person is inside the Smithsonian Institute, where a 35-foot-long chunk of the original restaurant’s automats remains. The rest of the chain's iconic machinery has likely been sent back to the future, until it's time comes again. References: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-rise-an... https://www.history.com/news/the-auto... https://allthatsinteresting.com/automat _____________________________________________________________ Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRJB... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other videos you may like: Dorothy's Stolen Ruby Red Slippers - Wizard of OZ    • Dorothy's Stolen Ruby Red Slippers. FOUND?   Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity    • Mars Rovers - Spirit & Opportunity.   Mining the Moon    • Should We Mine The Moon?   Products You Didn't Know Were Made From Petroleum    • Petroleum Products You Might Not Know About!   Beautiful Fall Colors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0G-O... The Colorado River https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo0Vx... The Mind - Your Best Friend or Worst Enemy    • Your Mind - Friend or Enemy?   Join us on social media! Facebook   / 3-minute-fli.  . Instagram Coming soon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image credits: https://www.infilmsdesign.com https://www.videoblocks.com YouTube Fair Use Music credits: https://www.epidemicsound.com