Automats make a comeback in covid-19 pandemic

Some restaurateurs in the New York City metropolitan area are looking to the past to figure out the future of dining during the coronavirus pandemic.

The automat, a concept developed more than a century ago in which customers could buy a hot meal offered from a vending machine’s glass locker, is getting a reboot, with two modern takes on the idea opening in Jersey City, N.J., and Manhattan. While it fell out of vogue in the 1970s, after failing to keep up with fast-food chains and advancing technology, some now consider the automat perfect for an era of social distancing.

Joe Scutellaro said he intends to open Automat Kitchen in Jersey City in December. The restaurant, with comfort food such as pastrami sandwiches and chicken-and-dumplings pot pie, initially was scheduled to launch in April, but the pandemic prompted Mr. Scutellaro to delay the opening.

“In the Covid-19 environment, it’s actually the right concept,” he said, referring to the illness caused by the new coronavirus. “We didn’t go into this anticipating a pandemic, but here we are.”

The restaurant industry has struggled since the pandemic was declared in March and lockdown restrictions were enacted to stem the spread of the virus.

At least 2,800 small businesses in New York City closed between March 1 and July 10, including about 1,289 restaurants, according to an August report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer. As many as half of the city’s nearly 24,000 restaurants and bars could be forced to close permanently in the next six months to a year, according to a state report.

Many restaurants continued to flounder even after restrictions eased and New York City began allowing outdoor dining. In late September, city restaurants were permitted to provide indoor dining at 25% capacity under social-distancing rules. But many restaurant owners said they still wouldn’t be able to make ends meet at such limited capacity.

Proprietors have continued to fine-tune their operations while cutting prices and employees. Some have introduced QR codes to read menus. Others have ramped up delivery services.

Mr. Scutellaro said his automat is similar to the original style in that customers pick up their meals from a cubby without interacting with an employee.

He has made some upgrades. Customers will have a completely touchless experience by ordering in advance on their smartphones or on the restaurant’s website, after which they will receive a unique code to unlock a food cubby. Mr. Scutellaro said a few kitchen staff members will prepare the food ahead of time to enable a turnaround of 5 to 7 minutes from when a customer places an order.

The first automat, named Quisisana, opened in Berlin in 1895. The concept arrived in the U.S. in 1902 in Philadelphia, and an automat opened in New York City 10 years later. After the Spanish Flu pandemic ended in 1920, automats experienced significant growth.

“The timing is eerily similar,” said Stratis Morfogen, the proprietor of the soon-to-launch automat dubbed Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. “A century later, and I’m doing the same thing.”

Mr. Morfogen said he views the automat as the most cost-effective way to distribute a product in the shop’s 500-square-foot space.

The pandemic struck New York City as Mr. Morfogen was planning to launch his shop. He decided to revamp his business model to reflect safety protocols, installing a germ-killing ultraviolet light and automatic sanitation mist in the food cubbies. The dumpling shop is set to open in the East Village at the end of November.

Diners can select the shop’s menu items using their phones or a touchless kiosk that can detect hovering fingers. They retrieve the food by scanning a custom bar code, which automatically opens the lockers.

The kitchen will be operated by robots, with supervision from one or two staff members. Robot arms are attached to the ceiling and hold deep fryers, flip dumplings and maintain the kitchen equipment with artificial intelligence.

The automat briefly re-entered the New York market in 2016 when San Francisco chain Eatsa opened two locations in Midtown Manhattan, but closed both outposts a year later after expanding in several cities too quickly. The menu was fully vegetarian and quinoa-based.

“We didn’t have enough locations to make the touchless hardware experience work at only 10 restaurants,” said Scott Drummond, co-founder of Eatsa. “From the food standpoint, it didn’t have the popularity it needed to be a restaurant business.”

While restaurateurs try to figure out new ways to serve meals during the pandemic, the dining industry will likely revert to the in-person, personal experience that customers have always enjoyed, according to Stephen Zagor, a consultant and professor at Columbia Business School who is focused on the restaurant and food industry.

“At the end of the day, people eat in restaurants for an experience and we’re moving away from that because we have to,” he said.

But some say the automat is here to stay. The latest iteration has already caught the eye of investors, including franchise-development company Fransmart, which has launched fast-food chains such as Five Guys and Qdoba. The company made a deal with Mr. Morfogen last month to sell 500 franchises in North America over the next 10 years at $40,000 each, while generating 5% in royalty fees.

“We think this is the next big thing,” said Dan Rowe, chief executive of Fransmart, who declined to disclose the dollar amount of the investment deal. “It’s going to grow really big, really fast over the next five to seven years.”

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text