Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee

Years after helping launch America’s fast-food revolution, Horn & Hardart may once again become a household name.

By: Bruce Conord

Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski

At the Horn & Hardart Café in Hamilton, macaroni and cheese, baked beans and a good cup of coffee never go out of style.

   If you remember Horn & Hardart Automats, you’re either from New York, New Jersey or Philadelphia, or you’re older than you might care to say.
   Horn & Hardart restaurants were supremely popular from the early 1920s until the late-1960s. It may surprise you that the last Automat didn’t close its doors until 1991, long after the restaurant chain’s appeal had grown stale. For those who have never heard of the landmark waiter-less eateries and coffee shops, Horn & Hardart is back, reincarnated where it began, as coffee shops.
   Horn & Hardart Coffee Co. franchised cafés have recently opened in Hamilton, in the Independence Plaza shopping center on South Broad Street, and in Flemington, in the Liberty Village Premium Outlet shopping center. There is also a Horn & Hardart café in the Doylestown Inn, in Doylestown, Pa., and one due shortly in Trump Casino in Atlantic City. In all locations, hardly five minutes go by without at least one new customer asking: Is this the same Horn & Hardart as before?
   Well it is and it isn’t.
   Long before Starbucks stirred America’s interest in casual coffee shops, Joe Horn and Frank Hardart revolutionized not only the way we drink coffee, but also our fascination with fast food. In the late 1800s, the two entrepreneurs operated a successful luncheonette and coffee shop across the street from Philadelphia’s Wanamaker Department Store.
   Mr. Hardart had once worked in New Orleans, where he learned about French roast coffee. For their shop, he bought higher quality coffee beans, roasted and ground them in house, and used a radically different method at the time — drip brewing. Their little eatery introduced good coffee and quality food to an eager urban clientele. On a vacation to Germany, he discovered waiterless restaurants, made possible by a vending machine that offered food behind little glass doors. A shrewd businessman, Mr. Hardart quickly imported the necessary machines. The two partners opened their first Automat 100 years ago this year at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia. Today, the same machines can be seen at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski

"I like the coffee shop concept; it fits my personality," claims Nancy Paddy (above), owner of the new Hamilton Horn & Hardart Café.

   The Automat concept soon took off. In 1911, the company expanded to New York City, where Horn & Hardart Automats became a major cultural, as well as culinary, icon. The famous restaurants featured a wall of little chrome and glass doors, behind which were servings of American staples — hot platters, sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, creamed spinach, pearled tapioca — some made right there in the store, the rest cooked fresh every morning at a central location from recipes by some of the country’s finest chefs. In distinctive electric trucks, the food was delivered to each shop to be browned or heated on site. No preservatives, no chemicals, no junk food. Customers would select their food and put correct change in the coin slot to open the door of their choice.
   Automat coffee became legendary. Employees would fill out a time card when they made a pot, then brew a fresh one every 20 minutes. No doubt it was this stimulant, combined with an informal atmosphere, that attracted the likes of Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Nat Hiken, Imogen Coca and Woody Allen to the Times Square Horn & Hardart, where they found it an ideal place to cook up gags for their shows. The Automat was such an important part of New York history that both Simon and Allen would sometimes rent the last surviving Automat at 42nd Street and Third Avenue for private parties celebrating the opening of new plays or movies.

Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski

In addition to the fresh (new pot every 20 minutes) hot coffees, including Costa Rican mild and traditional French Roast Automat, Horn & Hardart cafés offer chilled coffee drinks, latte and cappuccino, plus frappes and mocha.

   Since the demise of the old chain, Horn & Hardart kept their business alive by selling coffee to supermarkets and wholesale outlets. In 2000, the first new Horn & Hardart coffee shops opened in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, not the old Automat concept, but a modern eatery that appeals to both young and old. Individual cafés feature the same design theme — ’60s modern, with a sunny cream, café and adobe color palette, soft ballad music in the background and coffee-colored tables with stylized swirls.
   The nostalgia might be there, but the service is entirely new. Grilled-to-order sandwiches such as Very Veggie, Pesto Chicken or Derby roast beef, plus soup and salad, round out the modern Horn & Hardart menu, although you can still buy classics — macaroni and cheese, baked beans and rice pudding by the pound.
   "I like the coffee shop concept; it fits my personality," claims Nancy Paddy, owner of the new Hamilton location. She left her job in corporate travel to open a café with a brand name she admits she had never even heard of. "But my mother did," she says, smiling broadly.
   In the Flemington location, partners Tom Cerverizzo and Frank Kelly, childhood friends and now brothers-in-law, share enthusiasm for their food and coffee offerings. In addition to the fresh (new pot every 20 minutes) hot coffees, including Costa Rican mild and traditional French Roast Automat, the cafés offer chilled coffee drinks, latte and cappuccino, plus frappes and mocha. Kids can have fun putting together s’mores made of Hershey’s chocolate and graham crackers, with a toast-at-the-table marshmallow set up.
   Through the years, Horn & Hardart was showcased as a cultural icon in Doris Day and Marilyn Monroe movies; the 1932 Broadway musical, Face the Music; Irving Berlin’s stage song, "Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee"; and Edward Hopper’s immortal 1927 painting, "Automat."
   Credited as America’s first fast food, Horn & Hardart Automats showed the way for all the KFCs, McDonalds and Burger Kings now so ubiquitous around the nation. In no small way, the success of these subsequent, themed fast-food restaurants, as well as demographic and social changes, forced the last of the old-style Automats out of business. But a return to the roots of what made Frank and Joe’s little luncheonette coffee shop so successful to begin with — fresh food and great coffee — has heralded a rebirth of Horn & Hardart, where a good cup of coffee never goes out of style.
Horn & Hardart Coffee Company café is located in Independence Plaza, 2465 S. Broad St., Hamilton;
for information, call (609) 888-5589. The Flemington café is in Liberty Village Premium Outlets, 1 Church
St; for information, call (908) 788-4290. In Doylestown, Pa., the café is in the Doylestown Inn on State
Street. All three stores are open seven days a week. On the Web: hornandhardart.com