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Horn & Hardart

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Template:Use mdy dates Template:Short description {{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}Template:Template otherTemplate:Main other{{#invoke:Check for clobbered parameters|check|nested=1|template=Infobox company|cat=Template:Main other|name; company_name|logo; company_logo|logo_alt; alt|trade_name; trading_name|former_names; former_name|type; company_type|predecessors; predecessor|successors; successor|foundation; founded|founders; founder|defunct; dissolved|hq_location; location|hq_location_city; location_city|hq_location_country; location_country|num_locations; locations|areas_served; area_served|net_income; profit|net_income_year; profit_year|owners; owner |homepage; website }}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Infobox company with unknown parameter "_VALUE_" | ignoreblank=y | alt | area_served | areas_served | assets | assets_year | aum | brands | company_logo | company_name | company_type | defunct | dissolved | divisions | embed | equity | equity_year | fate | footnotes | former_name | former_names | foundation | founded | founder | founders | genre | homepage | hq_location | hq_location_city | hq_location_country | incorporated | image | image_alt | image_caption | image_size | image_upright | income_year | industry | ISIN | key_people | location | location_city | location_country | locations | logo | logo_alt | logo_caption | logo_class | logo_size | logo_upright | members | members_year | module | name | native_name | native_name_lang | net_income | net_income_year | num_employees | num_employees_year | num_locations | num_locations_year | operating_income | owner | owners | parent | predecessor | predecessors | production | production_year | products | profit | profit_year | rating | ratio | revenue | revenue_year | romanized_name | services | subsid | successor | successors | traded_as | trade_name | trading_name | type | website| qid | fetchwikidata | suppressfields | noicon | nocat | demo | categories }} Horn & Hardart was a food services company in the United States noted for operating the first food service automats in Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Horn & Hardart automats ushered in the fast food era and at their height, they were the largest restaurant chain in the world, with 88 locations.Template:Citation needed

Philadelphia's Joseph Horn (1861–1941) and German-born, New Orleans-raised Frank Hardart (1850–1918) opened their first restaurant in Philadelphia, on December 22, 1888. The Template:Convert lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools. The location was formerly the print shop of Dunlap & Claypoole, printers to the American Congress and George Washington.<ref name="washingtonpost-automat-covid">Template:Cite news</ref>

By introducing Philadelphia to New Orleans-style coffee, which Hardart promoted as their "gilt-edge" brew, they made their tiny luncheonette a local attraction. News of the coffee spread, and the business flourished. They incorporated as the Horn & Hardart Baking Company in 1898.

At its peak the company operated in excess of 100 restaurants, as well as a popular chain of retail outlets. The lack of a succession plan, changing demographics, the rapid rise of fast food chains, and poor strategic decisions from the early 1960s on were too much to overcome and the last restaurant was closed in 1991.

HistoryEdit

File:20200729 0818-0820 CHESTNUT.jpg
818 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, site of first U.S. Automat, with original Horn & Hardart sign still up in July 2020
File:Horn and Hardard halibut ad.png
Newspaper ad from 1922 for the 25 Philadelphia locations of Horn and Hardart automats, restaurants, and cafeterias, claiming that the equivalent of one out of every sixteen people in the city ate in one of their establishments daily

Joseph Horn had traveled in Europe and experienced the revolutionary new form of restaurant known as the Automat, pioneered by Template:Ill in Berlin. Inspired by the success and decor of this new form of food service that eliminated wait staffs but still served high quality fresh food, Horn persuaded his partner Frank Hardart to open the first automat<ref name="philadelphiaencyclopedia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in the U.S., which made its debut on June 9, 1902,<ref name="Automat-Restaurants" /> at 818 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.<ref>"Horn & Hardart Automat, 968 6th Ave. between 35th & 36th Sts. (1986)", 36th Street, New York City Signs – 14th to 42nd Street.</ref> It was the first non-European restaurant to receive patented vending machines from Sielaff's Automat GmbH factory in Berlin, the creators also of the first chocolate bar vending machine for Template:Ill.<ref name="Automat-Restaurants">Automat-Restaurants – Automat GmbH, 23 Spenerstrasse, Berlin, N.W. :: Trade Catalogs and Pamphlets – OCLC</ref>

Ten years later the first New York Automat opened in Times Square, on July 2, 1912, and later that week, the third opened at Broadway and E 14th St, near Union Square.

In 1924, Horn & Hardart opened retail stores to sell prepackaged automat favorites. Using the advertising slogan, "Less Work for Mother," the company popularized the notion of easily served "take-out" food as an equivalent to "home-cooked" meals.<ref name=hardart>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Horn & Hardart Automats were particularly popular during the Depression era, when their macaroni and cheese, baked beans, and creamed spinach were staple offerings.Template:Citation needed 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.<ref name="gray">Template:Cite news</ref>

By the time of Horn's death in 1941, the business had 157 retail shops and restaurants in the Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore, areas, serving some 500,000 patrons a day.<ref>"Joseph V. Horn, Automat Chain Co-Founder Dies," The Washington Post, October 15, 1941, p. 23.</ref> During the 1940s and the 1950s, more than 50 New York Horn & Hardart restaurants served 350,000 customers a day.Template:Citation needed

In 1953, the company split into two independent public corporations: the New York entity was named the Horn & Hardart Company, the Philadelphia the Horn & Hardart Baking Company. Shares of the first were traded on the American Stock Exchange, and the second the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.Template:Citation needed

The self-service restaurants operated for nearly a century, with the business' last storefront closing in New York City in 1991.

OperationEdit

File:Horn & Hardart automat.JPG
Horn & Hardart postcard, circa 1930s

In their heyday, Horn & Hardart automats were popular, busy eateries. They featured prepared foods displayed behind small coin- and token-operated glass-doored windows, beginning with buns, beans, fish cakes, and coffee.Template:Citation needed As late as the 1950s one could enjoy a large, if somewhat plain, meal for under $1.00. Each stack of dispensers had a metal drum that could be rotated by staff on the other side of the vending wall to refill its windows. Every dispenser had a slot for coins or tokens purchased from a cashier worth up to 75¢ for more expensive items. A knob was rotated to capture the fee and unlock the door. Dispensers were room temperature, heated, or cooled as appropriate.

With success the chain began lunch and dinner entrees, such as fish, beef stew, and Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes.

Carolyn Hughes Crowley described the appeal of the Automats:

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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 dispensers. After depositing the appropriate amount the compartment opened to present the desired food to the customer through a small glass. Diners picked up hot foods at buffet-style steam tables.

The word "automat" comes from the Greek automatos, meaning "self-acting." Still, the Automats were heavily staffed. As a customer removed a compartment's contents, a worker quickly slipped another sandwich, salad, side dish, or dessert into the vacated chamber.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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PromotionsEdit

The Horn and Hardart Children's HourEdit

Radio programEdit

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 as adults became well-known performers (such as Bernadette Peters and Frankie Avalon). The program was broadcast first 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, succeeded by Ralph Edwards and finally Ed Herlihy.Template:Citation needed. The show Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Avalon, Bernadette Peters, Gregory Hines, and Madeline Kahn all got their starts on the show.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Television programEdit

The television premiere of The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour appeared on WCAU-TV in Philadelphia in 1948, succeeded by WNBT in New York in 1949, telecast on Sunday mornings. Stan Lee Broza hosted in Philadelphia, and Ed Herlihy in New York.Template:Citation needed

DeclineEdit

For a long period of time the price of coffee was 5 cents, or one nickel. On November 29, 1950 the price was raised to 10 cents, requiring two nickels.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The restaurant chain remained popular into the 1960s, operating sit-down waitress service restaurants, cafeterias, retail stores, Template:Clarify in addition to its automats. In the late 1960s, efforts were made to update decor, and redecorate some restaurants relevant to surrounding neighborhoods; thus, the Automat on 14th Street was decorated with psychedelic posters. The chain rapidly lost ground to the explosive rise of fast-food chains, which offered cheap fare, a limited menu, and easy to carry take-out.

By the mid-1970s the company began to replace some of its restaurants with its own Burger King franchises.<ref>"Closing the Automat Door," by Peter Mikelbank, The Washington Post, September 7, 1975, p. 135.</ref> Horn & Hardart further expanded its fast food operations in 1981, acquiring the Bojangles' Famous Chicken n' Biscuits restaurants, which it sold to a California investment company in 1990 for $20 million.<ref>Acquisitions, The Washington Post, August 30, 1990, pg. C2.</ref> More similar restaurant franchises and associations were to follow.

In 1979, Horn & Hardart agreed to buy the Royal Inn in Las Vegas for $7.4 million.<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Subscription required</ref> By late 1980, the sale had been completed, and the property was rebranded as the Royal Americana Hotel, with a New York theme.<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Subscription required</ref> A $3.5 million renovation<ref name=nyt030282>Template:Cite news</ref> increased the room count to 300.<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Subscription required</ref> By 1982 though, the hotel was experiencing substantial losses, and Horn & Hardart decided to close it.<ref name=nyt030282 /> They reportedly agreed that December to sell the property to an investment group for $15.4 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The last New York Horn & Hardart Automat (on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue) closed on April 9, 1991.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>"Slices of History: At New York's Last Automat only the Ambiance is the Same," by David Streitfeld, The Washington Post, April 24, 1988, p. 66.</ref> Horn & Hardart continued to own a catalog division; it renamed itself Hanover Direct in 1993. That year the company bought Gump's; it sold it to an investment group in 2005. Hanover Direct purchased International Male in 1987 when founder Gene Burkard retired.Template:Citation needed

RevivalsEdit

In 1987, Horn & Hardart opened two 1950s themed Dine-O-Mat restaurants in New York. They closed less than two years later.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In 1986 its only remaining Philadelphia area restaurant was in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.<ref>Template:Cite news – Clipping at Newspapers.com.</ref> In summer 1987 the company opened another restaurant in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, a second in the Philadelphia area.<ref>Template:Cite news – Clipping of first and of second page at Newspapers.com.</ref> Its planned square footage was Template:Convert. The space was a former Duff's Cafeteria.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In December 1988 it was to open another location in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In the early 1990s, two entrepreneurs bought the Philadelphia company (Horn & Hardart Baking Co.) out of bankruptcy. While they did not open any restaurants, they reproduced a dozen of the most famous food items, including macaroni and cheese, Harvard beets, tapioca pudding, and cucumber salad.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The food was packed fresh, refrigerated, and sold in supermarkets throughout Philadelphia and New Jersey. The food was still available up until 2002.Template:Citation needed

The Horn & Hardart name was used for a now-dormant chain of coffee shops in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Horn & Hardart Coffee Co. closed its last coffee shop in 2005.Template:Citation needed

As of 2016, the Horn & Hardart – Bakery Cafe is the name of a coffee shop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The assets of the company were purchased in 2015 as Horn & Hardart Coffee. They recreated the original East Coast City Roast and branded coffee was offered as of 2016 on their website. They also offered a subscription service called The Automat Club.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

As of November 2022, the official Horn & Hardart website announced that the brand had returned with a recreation of the original Automat Blend of coffee. The website also says the company is in the process of modernizing the Automat and restoring the brand online and in retail. <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The new CEO, David Arena, published his vision for the company online which he says includes reopening an Automat in the future. <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

GalleryEdit

  • Horn & Hardart Times Square New York circa 1939.JPG

    Automat in Times Square, circa 1939

  • Horn & Hardart Automat Brass "F" Token.jpg

    A brass H&H token

  • Horn & Hardart Automat New York City 57th Street.JPG

    1930s-era Automat at 104 West 57th Street near Sixth Avenue showing areas for beverages and pies at right of dining area

In popular cultureEdit

Template:In popular culture

LiteratureEdit

  • In Paul Auster's 2017 novel 4 3 2 1, Ferguson visits the restaurant, which is described as a place of "twentieth-century American efficiency in its craziest, most delightful incarnation".<ref>Paul Auster: 4 3 2 1 Henry Holt and Company, New York 2017, e-Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN, p.353 chapter 3.4.</ref>
  • In the 1967 novel, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, the main characters eat using coins from the fountain of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Museum exhibitsEdit

  • On June 22, 2012, the New York Public Library opened an exhibition on June 22, 2012, titled "Lunch Hour NYC". The exhibition "looks back at more than a century of New York lunches, when the city's early power brokers invented the 'power lunch' ..... and visitors with guidebooks thronged Times Square to eat lunch at the Automat." Among many educational and entertaining items is a fully restored wall of Automat windows. The exhibit was scheduled to run until February 17, 2013.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History previously had displayed in its cafe an ornate 35-foot Automat section, complete with mirrors, marble and marquetry, from Philadelphia's 1902 Horn & Hardart<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> although this exhibit has since been removed. In 2006 Paul and Tom Hardart donated the business records for the Horn and Hardart chain of restaurants and retail stores to the Smithsonian Archives; the records include annual reports, business correspondence, operating manuals, photographs, sales materials, and printed materials such as employee newsletters and clippings.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

MusicEdit

Stage productionsEdit

  • In the song "Colored Spade" from the musical Hair (1967), the character Hud (a militant African-American) satirically assigns to himself various racial stereotypes including "Table cleaner at Horn & Hardart".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="colored_spade_01">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

TelevisionEdit

FilmEdit

  • Metropolitan (1990), the first film of Whit Stillman's classic trilogy, contains a scene in which Tom Townsend and Charie Black have a conversation inside (and then depart the entrance to) the last New York Horn & Hardart Automat at the SE corner of 42nd Street and 3rd Avenue.
  • That Touch of Mink (1962), comedy with Cary Grant, Doris Day, as and Gig Young who visit the Automat in New York City
  • The Automat (2021), documentary by Lisa Hurwitz about the chain featuring Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsberg
  • When Harry Met Sally (1989), at the beginning of the movie, the old couple interview, the husband mentioned that he was sitting in a Horn & Hardart cafeteria.
  • Marnie (1964), directed by Alfred Hitchcock , Mark’s father mentions that he insists on “good Horn & Hardart’s” [butter] cake at tea time. In another scene when Marnie and Mark were leaving for their honeymoon, Mark’s father comments that he chose the wedding cake bakery recommended by Horn & Hardart’s executives.

Further readingEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

Template:Restaurants in Philadelphia Template:Portalbar

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