One afternoon in 1969 Patti Smith peered into the glass hatches of an Automat, a cafeteria which dispensed cheap food from vending machines. It was one of the musician’s favourite places to eat in New York—she was particularly fond of the chicken pies—but on that occasion was longing for a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich. Seeing that she was shy of the 65 cents required, Allen Ginsberg came to her rescue. (Ms Smith says the poet mistook her for a “very pretty boy” at the time; they would later become close friends.)

Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart had gone into business together in Philadelphia in 1888 and opened the first Horn & Hardart Automat in New York in 1912. By the mid-20th century there were dozens of outposts in the two cities, serving more than 800,000 people a day. With their affordable food and plentiful coffee, the cafeterias attracted all kinds of diners: one rhyme of 1933 said that technocrats, plutocrats, autocrats and democrats could all be found eating at them. Yet by the late 1960s inflation, property prices and the advent of fast-food outlets brought about their decline. (Some locations were simply converted into burger joints.) The last Automat closed in 1991 and their legacy has been largely forgotten.

A charming new documentary is an ode to the grandeur and promise of the eateries. They were based on the mechanised restaurants and dumbwaiters that Hardart, the German-born co-founder, had seen when visiting Berlin in 1900. Designed to evoke grand European cafes in style, Automats appealed to the nearly 12m migrants who had arrived from the continent between 1870 and 1900. Horn & Hardart was part of an “Americanisation process”, Lisa Keller, a historian, says in the film. Even if you didn’t speak English or didn’t want to interact with anyone, “you could go there and feel like you were part of the larger American stream.”

Lisa Hurwitz, the director, has interviewed several prominent figures, many of them the children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants. They reflect on their memories of Automats; some recollect taking the subway from Brooklyn or the Bronx expressly to visit one. Mel Brooks, now aged 95, vividly recalls the time he spent in the restaurants as a youngster, especially his fascination with the “nickel-throwers”. (At each Automat you could exchange your dollar bill for coins to operate the hatches.) Ruth Bader Ginsberg, interviewed in 2016, used to find a quiet table to read a book or do her homework. Howard Schultz, the former chief executive of Starbucks, keeps a picture of an Automat in his office to remind him of “the theatre, the romance, the sense of discovery” that these places held for their patrons.

During the Depression, Automats thrived: they sustained people with hot drinks for a nickel and a good meal for not much more, and offered a brief escape from reality. They were often thought of as safe havens. When women entered the workforce, and began going out in public alone, they patronised Automats. Colin Powell, a former secretary of state also interviewed in 2016, says that Horn & Hardart was one of the only venues where he felt welcome as an African-American boy, and that a trip was a treat for his whole family. Wilson Goode, the first black mayor of Philadelphia, remembers that Automats were crucial meeting places for civil-rights activists and aspiring political figures.

The film imparts some fascinating facts—at one point, 10% of Philadelphians were eating at Horn & Hardart daily—and convinces the viewer that Automats were an important part of the American social fabric. Though long gone, they are evidently not forgotten. In “At The Automat”, a new song Mr Brooks wrote for the film, he pays fond tribute to its famous coffee: “for just a shiny nickel, your tastebuds you could tickle, with that wonderful, magnificent, unbelievable, awesome coffee at the Automat.” ■

“The Automat” is released in America on February 18th