December 12, 2023
SOURCE/SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM
Horn & Hardart popularized automat dining in Philadelphia in the early 20th century. The coin-operated machine above, housed at the Smithsonian, allowed customers to purchase meals without the assistance of a server. Now, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is bringing the concept back to Philly.
Automat-style dining – the waiterless food service once ubiquitous in Philadelphia – is returning to the city for the first time in more than three decades.
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, a Manhattan-based restaurant chain that utilizes a modern take on the automat dining experience, will open its first Philly location at Third and South streets on Dec. 20, according to PhillyBite Magazine. Two more are expected to open early next year.
Like many restaurants, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop uses digital displays and scannable QR codes to serve food to its patrons. But while the dumpling shop's wall of numbered windows may look new and unusual, the system is inspired by one a Philadelphia luncheonette brought to the United States in the early 20th Century.
After initially setting up shop in Center City in 1888, Horn & Hardart opened its first Automat restaurant at Eighth and Chestnut streets in 1902. The then-innovative approach to food service allowed customers to retrieve their meals from nickel-operated, miniature lockers with windows, which were stocked by the restaurant's staff from the other side of the wall.
Horn & Hardart's unique self-service, semi-automated dining experience grew in popularity over the next few decades as the chain opened dozens of locations in Philadelphia and New York City. But by the 1980s, the automat format had given way to a new revolution in American dining: fast food.
Horn & Hardart filed for bankruptcy in 1981. Many of its locations were replaced by Burger King, McDonald's and other fast food chains, according to local historian Stephen Nepa. The last Philly-area automat, a Horn & Hardart in Bala Cynwyd, shut down in May 1990.
Since then, one of the only places one could find an automat was by visiting the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, which houses a 25-foot long section of a wall extracted from the first Horn & Hardart Automat in Philadelphia.
Now, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is bringing the concept back to Philadelphia.
The chain is known for its variety of dumplings, which include traditional flavors like pork bun, Korean BBQ and sweet and sour shrimp, as well as less expected flavors like peanut butter and jelly, chicken parm, reuben and bacon cheeseburger. A Philly cheesesteak dumpling is in the works, too, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The menu at Brooklyn Dumpling Shop also includes a range of chop chop bowls, peanut noodles, burgers and fries.
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop also plans to open locations at 34th Street and Lancaster Avenue in West Philly and at 15th and Sansom streets in Center City in early 2024. They are among about 30 locations that the chain anticipates opening in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey over the next eight years. The company has set up an Instagram account for that provides updates on its Philly-area locations.
