The Most Famous Restaurant Chains That Failed (For Good Reasons!)
Ever wonder why famous failed restaurant chains like Howard Johnson’s and D’Lites went under? Find out here!
4. Horn & Hardart Automat
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Horn & Hardart stands out from the rest of the restaurant chains on this list as they weren’t just restaurants. Taking the lead from similar ventures in Berlin, Horn & Hordart started as the U.S.’s first automated fast food joints, known as “Automats,” all the way back in the 1910s. Believe it or not, at this restaurant you could actually buy food from behind a glass window – like some sort of giant vending machine!
To use a Horn & Hardart Automat, customers just needed to insert the proper amount of money and pull a lever to take out fresh-made fast food. Unlike other failed restaurant chains, Horn & Hardart’s magic lasted a long time. Nearly 100 years! Unfortunately, the last Horn & Hardart closed back in 1991. Thankfully, similar automat restaurants still exist today in other parts of the world, like Japan and Europe.
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