Quisisana was a German company that introduced the world's first automat restaurant in June 1895 on the grounds of the Berlin Zoological Garden, Germany. The establishment was considered a success, selling 5,400 sandwiches, 9,000 glasses of wine and cordials, and 22,000 cups of coffee on its first Sunday of business. Quisisana also manufactured automat machines and equipment, including a milk vending machine which was adapted for use in German schools. The name Quisisana comes from the Italian phrase qui si sana, which roughly translates to "here one is healed" or "here you become healthy". Automat is a loanword from German for automaton which was adopted from Latin automatus, who originally borrowed it from the Greekautómatos meaning "acting of itself".
History and American Expansion
After the introduction of the first automat in Berlin and a demonstration of the technology at the Brussels World Fair in 1887, the company soon expanded into other European cities such as Vienna in 1898, whilst also purveying their concept in the United States. Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart, owners of the first automat in the United States, were inspired by the Quisisana automat restaurant after Hardart, of Bavarian heritage himself, visited one in 1900. Hardart then supposedly convinced Horn to place an order for automat equipment from the Quisisana company itself, in order to expand their existing restaurant services. However, some sources instead state that they purchased their vending machines in 1901 from a person of the name Max Sielaff, a salesman looking to sell vending machines designed by a German engineer from Automat GmbH. Sielaff had supposedly been convincing the partners to purchase automat equipment since 1898, and believed America would be receptive to this new technology. It took two years for Quisisana's equipment to arrive in Philadelphia, the home of their restaurant, owing to the first machine being transported by a steamship which sank. Their insurance company covered the bill and they received their automat equipment in 1902 — the same year they opened their automat under the name Horn & Hardart at No. 818 Chestnut Street. Horn and Hardart ordered more German equipment in 1905, '07, and '12, each time having it refined by their chief engineerJohn Fritsche, before eventually devising their own automat machines.
In the United States customers paid for the meals by exchanging larger sums of money for change at a register without a number display, supposedly keeping diner's spending habits discreet. Whereas in Austria a system of tokens existed for the restaurant on Kärntner Straße with the inscription "Automaten Buffet, Quisisana" on the front face and "Centrale Wien-I, Kärtnerstr. 57" on the back face, referring to No. 57, Kärtnerstraße, District 1, Vienna. There also exist tokens displaying an unknown illustration on the back face instead of writing, possibly suggesting these were used by different Quisisana automats. The original automat in Berlin supposedly exclusively used tokens as well. It still remains unknown whether this token system applied to other establishments in Europe, or whether it was reserved the automat buffets located in Germany and Austria.
