- Title: USA: Bamn! A new "automat" style restaurant evokes a bygone era
- Date: 2nd September 2006
- Summary: (L!3) NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK (AUGUST 28, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE NEIGHBOURHOOD IN MANHATTAN WHERE THE BAMN! AUTOMAT RESTAURANT IS LOCATED THE FRONT OF THE BAMN! AUTOMAT RESTAURANT VARIOUS OF CUSTOMERS LOOKING AT THE AUTOMAT MACHINES A MAN PUTTING IN A COIN IN THE AUTOMAT MACHINE AND TAKING OUT A BURGER (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBU X, PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR MARKETING AND BRANDING OF BAMN! AUTOMAT RESTAURANT, SAYING: "We wanted something that's light, something bright, something fun. Something that creates conversation and the automat has such a wonderful story. It's about New York, about the 50's, about the twenties, about film and the whole culture around that. So instead of opening up another joint, we decided that it's going to be fun, it's going to be fresh." PEOPLE IN THE AUTOMAT RESTAURANT BOARD WITH AUTOMAT MACHINE USE INSTRUCTIONS CUSTOMER AT THE RESTAURANT LOOKING AT THE AUTOMAT MACHINES (SOUNDBITE) (English) MARTIN RUSSOCKI, CUSTOMER, SAYING: "It's almost like coming out of your apartment at midnight and going to your fridge for a midnight snack or something. It's like just grab it quickly. But I don't think I'd go on a date here, I wouldn't like set up a little table with a candle next to one of these. I don't think that would work." (SOUNDBITE) (English) LORRAINE GOODMAN, FAN OF AUTOMAT RESTAURANTS, SAYING: "As a little kid, we grew up in Massachusetts but we'd come to New York and it was the primary number thing I wanted to do was to go to the Automat, get sandwiches for a nickel and twenty five. And it was so sad when it closed, heartbreaking, so am shocked that somebody had the ingenuity to bring it back and the prices look pretty good too." SANDWICH IN THE AUTOMAT VENDING MACHINE AUTOMAT VENDING MACHINE WITH BURGERS INSIDE MAN LOOKING AT THE AUTOMAT VENDING MACHINES
- Embargoed: 17th September 2006 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA2UUIR9P1HWAOQGV4FW438PB2T
- Story Text: Pop in a coin in a machine and take out, no, not M&Ms or Coke, but a nice, warm burger or a hot empanada, all stacked one above the other in warm slots. That's the idea behind a new eatery in New York City that draws inspiration from the automat style restaurants that were quite the rage in the earlier half of the nineteenth century.
With approximately half-a-million dollars invested in it, "Bamn! Automat", opened on a rainy Monday (August 28) in the Lower East side neighbourhood of Manhattan, drawing in a throng of crowds curious about the whole automat idea as well as lured by the inexpensive food on offer -- hot dogs, bite sized burgers, mac and cheese, pizza, chicken strips, and pork buns, costing less than two dollars each.
One of the forces behind the restaurant, Nobu X, who is also in charge of marketing and branding the eatery, explained that the name "Bamn!" comes from the need to create a monicker that connoted the action of eating at an automat restaurant and also described the mood of "grab and go." At a brainstorming session, the restaurant team tried describing the whole automaton experience in a word and when they couldn't, they settled on a sound instead. The sound was "Bamn!". It's a play on the word, "damn" and people describing the food as "damn good."
Kevin Reilly, the Executive Chef at Water Club is a consulting chef at Bamn!. He said about six items here are made in house, such as the peanut butter and jelly empanada, the macaroni and cheese croquets and the chicken teriyaki burgers. They are getting pork buns as well as custard buns from China Town. Reilly describes the food as "fun" but not "fast food", although it gets to customers quickly.
Not everything comes out "bamn" from the automaton machines though. For things like ice cream and drinks, customers still do have to go to the counter.
Explaining the motivation behind opening Bamn, Nobu X said, "We wanted something that's light, something bright, something fun. Something that creates conversation and the automat has such a wonderful story. It's about New York, about the 50's, about the twenties, about film and the whole culture around that. So instead of opening up another joint, we decided that it's going to be fun, it's going to be fresh."
The automat restaurants of the 20's to the 50's that Nobu X refers to centred on vending machines covered in windowed compartments, displaying hot, fresh comfort food. There were supposed to have been dozens of automat restaurants in the Big Apple at one point. "Horn and Hardart's" was one of the popular American chain of automats, with eateries in Philadelphia and New York. Their New York restaurant lasted for about 80 years.
The automat declined with the emergence of fast food in the 1950s and with food becoming too expensive to be bought conveniently with coins. Automat restaurants still managed to survive in European countries though, such as the Netherlands.
The whole idea behind the automat experience at Bamn, its owners say, is not just the good, inexpensive food but the whole vintage kind of feel. There are timers on the back of the automat machines. When cooks load up the windows, they punch a timer and the food sits there for 15 minutes. The restaurant claims that if food sits there more than 15 minutes, it is thrown away.
The counterperson keeps an eye on the customers and depending on the people out there, he or she will stack up particular machines.
One of the customers visiting Bamn on its first day, Martin Russocki, a New Yorker who is originally from Toronto, loves the idea of the automat as a quick way of getting some hot food, but doesn't think that he would choose it for a long, laid back or romantic meal.
"It's almost like coming out of your apartment at midnight and going to your fridge for a midnight snack or something. It's like just grab it quickly. But I don't think I'd go on a date here, I wouldn't like set up a little table with a candle next to one of these. I don't think that would work," said Russocki.
But an even bigger fan of the automat restaurant is Lorraine Goodman, who was also at the opening of Bamn!.
"As a little kid, we grew up in Massachusetts but we'd come to New York and it was the primary number thing I wanted to do was to go to the Automat, get sandwiches for a nickel and twenty five. And it was so sad when it closed, heartbreaking, so am shocked that somebody had the ingenuity to bring it back and the prices look pretty good too," Goodman said.
For now, it looks like the New Yorkers visiting Bamn are on a nostalgic journey into the past, savouring the smells, tastes and unique atmosphere of the early nineteenth century. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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