With Health A Top Priority, Restaurants Race To Innovate

In the early 20th century, the leading causes of death in the United States were a group of infectious diseases that spread from person to person via airborne particles. 

Influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis accounted for about 400 of every 100,000 deaths in 1900. And in 1918, an especially virulent strain of the flu swept the globe, killing nearly 700,000 Americans.

These diseases formed the backdrop for the rise of a new kind of restaurant: the automat. Customers at the cafeteria-style eateries purchased and retrieved food from vending machines that required no human contact. On top of being fast and cheap, it offered a more hygienic experience for the health-conscious population. 

“They thought the glass-fronted compartments and shiny fittings were sanitary, a comforting reassurance after the food contamination scares of the time,” said a 2001 article in Smithsonian Magazine. 

One hundred years later, this all sounded very familiar to New York restaurateur Stratis Morfogen as he prepared to open the first location of his Brooklyn Dumpling Shop amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

“As I’m reading this, I’m just like, ‘Well this is just too crazy. All the stars are aligned for [the business plan] I wrote in 2019. This is the perfect business model for the times,’” he said in an interview with Restaurant Business.

At Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, like at the original automat, customers order, pay and pick up their food without interacting with another person. But instead of putting a nickel in a slot, guests order from their phone or via touchless in-store kiosks. When their order is ready, they pick it up from a temperature-controlled cubby that is opened with a code sent to their phone.