On a Thursday morning in April of 1991, New Yorkers trooping through midtown beheld a wistful sight. The Horn & Hardart automat on the corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue—the lone holdout of a restaurant empire that once counted 40 locations in the city—had closed its doors.
With their self-serve, coin-op, cafeteria-style layout, H&H had revolutionized what it meant to dine out in the first half of the 20th century.
