I know there wasn't one in the Bronx (except for a take out on Fordham Road), but I doubt there was anyone who didn't eat at a Horn and Hardart's. I just ran across an article at: smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/object_aug01.html. It brought back some memories. Fast food today just doesn't provide the same quality of food or setting that we took for granted back then. The baked bean and macaroni and cheese come to mind first. What astounded me the most was that a cup of coffee remained 5 cents from 1912 until 1950. I suppose you could have gotten a week's worth of lunches for the cost of Starbuck's specialty coffee drink today.

When I was going to college, I ate the H&H baked beans an mac and cheese every day. You cn find the recipees on the web. My wife made the beans a couple of years ago from the reciper and it tasted like the real thing. I am going to ask her to do it again.

There was one on 181st St. & St. Nicholas Ave. across the "Little Washington Bridge" and my Mother took me there for lunch ever Saturday for years.

Many years later while doing work for the Have a Heart Fouondation we ran a Haloween Party at the last H&H on 42nd & 3rd Ave which ended up as a catering facility for Bar Mitzvahs & weddings.

quote:

Originally posted by SANDY G:
There was one on 181st St. & St. Nicholas Ave. across the "Little Washington Bridge" and my Mother took me there for lunch ever Saturday for years.

Many years later while doing work for the Have a Heart Fouondation we ran a Haloween Party at the last H&H on 42nd & 3rd Ave which ended up as a catering facility for Bar Mitzvahs & weddings.

Was that about the late 80's early 90's? I believe it was around when Trump was building all the hotels around there.

When I was last at the 42ns street H&H, it was more a cafeteria than an "automat". There were only a hanfful of windows where you could put in coins and get food.

quote:

Originally posted by HARPER:

quote:

Originally posted by SANDY G:
There was one on 181st St. & St. Nicholas Ave. across the "Little Washington Bridge" and my Mother took me there for lunch ever Saturday for years.

Many years later while doing work for the Have a Heart Fouondation we ran a Haloween Party at the last H&H on 42nd & 3rd Ave which ended up as a catering facility for Bar Mitzvahs & weddings.

Was that about the late 80's early 90's? I believe it was around when Trump was building all the hotels around there.

It was more like the early 80's although I don't know wheb they actually closed.

"Fast food" back then was real food. Today, your hamburger might consist of meat from 5 or 6 different facilities in more than one country, combined in some plant where there is an acceptable tolerance level for fecal and other "foreign" matter.
Horn and Hardart, the local delis, the cafeterias (especially 167th st Cafeteria) had fresh and delicious food. I don't recall anyone becoming ill from eating out...except from overeating. Then a squirt of seltzer usually solved that problem.
Back then our parents warned us that eating out before dinner would spoil our appetites. Now they need to warn their children that eating out might kill them.
I remember bringing chopped meat home from the butcher (where you saw him cut the meat and grind it in front of you) and taking a taste of raw meat. No problem.
I find it more unnerving that people tolerate these low health standards and practices that are excused as being part of progress.

Aah, yes, I remember my boyhood days in the '40s & early '50s, looking forward to visiting H & H; it wasn't the food which attracted me, but rather the opportunity to use my nickles and open those "little doors" to get at the cake, pie, etc. To this day, I miss those long gone moments of pleasure.

quote:

Originally posted by Dybuk75:
Aah, yes, I remember my boyhood days in the '40s & early '50s, looking forward to visiting H & H; it wasn't the food which attracted me, but rather the opportunity to use my nickles and open those "little doors" to get at the cake, pie, etc. To this day, I miss those long gone moments of pleasure.

On their last go around it was more than nickels...

Mmmmmmmmm! Mac & Cheese, Fish cakes, Chicken Pot Pie,and Franks n Beans. If I'm not wrong it was the first time I ever saw Tuna sandwichs served with potato chips.

I used to travel from the Bronx to 48th and Seventh (right next door to the Metropole Cafe, if I reember correctly) every Wednesday right after school, to take trumpet lessons from Harry Berken, an older man who was a well-known player in the big bands back in his time. There was a H&H real close, and I always stopped in for a meal after my lesson. Yes, the food was good, but what attracted me even more was watching the mechanism that operated the entire system. of course, the tables and tables of older men just sitting there and reminiscing made me sit close to them just to eavesdrop.

Wonderful memories.

And let's not forget the loss of a truly great skill. The lady making change. You would give her a dollar and she would throw out 20 nickels without looking. No need to count your change. She never screwed up.