At the Horn & Hardart Automat, a customer could obtain a cup of coffee by sliding a nickel into a thin brass slot and pulling a lever below it, allowing a steady stream of chicory-blended coffee to ...

Is it possible to feel an emotional attachment to a restaurant you never went to? After watching “The Automat,” and hearing people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mel Brooks, Howard Schultz and Colin Powell ...

AUTOMAT_film_Mel Brooks drinking coffee photographed by Carl Reiner while the two were writers for Your Show of Shows, c. 1950-1954 in The Automat. Photo courtesy of A Slice of Pie Productions Mel ...

Filmmaker Lisa Hurwitz brings a piece of Philadelphia history back to life with her film “The Automat.” The Automat was a dining experience that brought people from all social classes together to ...

The author works for Temple University Library, which is also the employer of John Pettit, an archivist in a separate department mentioned in the article. Hurwitz’s film shows that the Automat’s ...

It isn’t difficult to explain the premise of The Automat, but it’s a little challenging to describe how it makes you feel. On the surface, it’s a case study about an early-20th-century restaurant ...

Jewish comedy legends Mel Brooks and the late Carl Reiner, as well as other well-known personalities, reminisce about a slice of American history in the documentary “The Automat,” opening in South ...

Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are just a few of the prominent folks who recall the joys of the innovative cafeteria in Lisa Hurwitz's documentary. By Stephen Farber Among the ...

When a relatively unheralded documentary contains interviews with Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elliott Gould, Colin Powell, Carl Reiner and Howard Schultz, chances are it’s something special, and ...

Lisa Hurwitz's film takes us back to a lost form of dining, and to an America where everyone came together to share it. Long ago, in a distant and far away America (you know, the ancient days of 2018 ...