Horn & Hardart

Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart opened America's most famous Automats — gleaming cafeterias where customers dropped nickels into chrome-and-glass coin slots to pop open little doors and retrieve fresh slices of pie, baked beans, and coffee from spouts shaped like dolphins. A democratic fixture of Philadelphia and New York dining for decades, the Automat was overtaken by fast food and changing tastes. The last Horn & Hardart Automat closed in Manhattan in 1991.