page_title: Horn & Hardart
section_title: Coins and chrome
hierarchical_section_title: Horn & Hardart / Description and offerings / Coins and chrome
caption_attribution_description: English: Horn &amp; Hardart Automat brass "F" token. Source: "The Cooper Collections" (uploader's private collections)
context_page_description: Horn & Hardart was a food services company in the United States noted for operating the first food service automats in Philadelphia and New York City.
  Philadelphia's Joseph Horn and German-born, New Orleans-raised Frank Hardart opened their first restaurant together in Philadelphia, on December 22, 1888. The small lunchroom at 39 South Thirteenth Street had no tables, only a counter with 15 stools. The location had housed the print shop of Dunlap & Claypoole, printers to the American Congress and George Washington.
  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.
context_section_description: These cafeterias featured prepared foods behind small glass windows and coin-operated slots, beginning with buns, beans, fish cakes, and coffee. These were popular, busy restaurants, where in the late 1950s, for under $1.00, one could enjoy a large, if somewhat plain, meal purchased with nickels usually obtained from the cashier. Each stack of glass-doored dispensers had a metal cylinder that could be rotated by the staff on the other side of the vending wall, hiding the contents while they refilled each dispenser in the stack with a plate of salad, pudding, meat, or vegetables. Each dispenser had a slot for one or more nickels, and a knob to rotate the nickels out of view into the internal cash box and to allow the glass door to be raised up and locked in a horizontal position for easy removal of the plate or bowl of food. More expensive items required tokens valued up to 75¢ which were available from the cashier. Some of the rectangular dispensers were heated, some cooled. Eventually, they served lunch and dinner entrees, such as beef stew and Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. The self-service restaurants operated in the city for nearly a century.
  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.
caption: H&H Automat brass token
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "1278", "Image ImageLength": "712", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "Horn & Hardart Automat Brass \"F\" Token", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:05:10 21:11:40", "Image Copyright": "Created by Wikipedia User Centpacrr and released as PD.", "Image ExifOffset": "352", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "538", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5022", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013-05-10T21:06-04:00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1278", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "712"}