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Automats are like self-service vending machines for hot food. They use rows of food lockers, sometimes heated, to store prepared food for customers to collect.
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Individual food lockers sit on top of each other and are lined up in rows, and are topped up throughout the day as products are sold.
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At the automats I saw in Amsterdam, you could pay by either cash or card.
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Some even had coin dispensers that you could use with notes, cards, and payment apps.
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Some of the stores I went to were pick-up only, but most had tables for customers to eat at too.
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Most of them shut in the late evening, but some are open until 3am on weeknights and 4am on Friday and Saturday nights.
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They mainly sell fried fast food, like croquettes, frikandellen, and bitterballen, as well as burgers.
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Items on its menu included pies, sandwiches, salads, stews, and soup. The chain was the first to bring fresh-drip brewed coffee to Philadelphia and New York, and each batch was poured away if it hadn’t sold within 20 minutes of being brewed. Horn & Hardart sold 90 million cups of coffee annually in the 1950s, according to the Smithsonian Magazine, and photos of its menu from 1958 show that it sold cigars and cigarettes, too.
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