Last year, Dutch fast food restaurant FEBO celebrated its 75th anniversary. Some consider the FEBO to be as typically Dutch as windmills, clogs and tulips. Let’s take a look at the history of the automat and FEBO, to see how Dutch they really are.

The first automats

An automat is a fast food restaurant where food and drinks are served via vending machines. Whilst Amsterdam is now considered to be the automat capital of the world, the very first automats did not originate in the Netherlands.

Max Sielaff and Berlin

Max Sielaff was a German engineer and entrepreneur. In 1888, Sielaff and inventor Theodor Bergmann developed the first automat for Ludwig Stollwerck. The automat gained popularity fast. Shortly after its creation, more than 10.000 automats could be found all over Germany.

Horn & Hardart and Philadelphia & New York

Horn & Hardart was the first non-European company to receive patented automats from Max Sielaff’s AUTOMAT factory. The company opened the first automat in the US on June 12, 1902 in Philadelphia. In 1912, the first New York automat opened in Times Square.

By 1941, Horn & Hardart had 157 retail shops and automat restaurants in Philadelphia and New York, serving 500.000 customers per day. Automats remained popular in New York for quite a while, until the rise of fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s in the 1970s.

In 2006, Bamn! Food (with the help of an automat dealer from Groningen, the Netherlands) tried to bring the automat back to New York, but it wasn’t meant to be. Three years after opening, it had to close its doors.

Dutch phenomenon FEBO

Whilst the rest of the world was saying goodbye to automats and embracing fast food joints like McDonald’s, the Netherlands stubbornly decided to hold on to the automat. And it was the Dutch company FEBO that was mostly responsible for that.

History of FEBO

FEBO stands for Ferdinand Bolstraat, a well-known street in Amsterdam. However, the first FEBO was not located at the Ferdinand Bolstraat. It also wasn’t a fast food restaurant. No, the very first FEBO started out as a bakery.

In 1941, Johan Izaäk de Borst opened a bakery called Maison FEBO. It sold artisan bread and other scrumptious baked goods. However, it was the freshly made kroketten (croquettes), that were the bestsellers.

People would stand in line for hours to get their hands (or mouths, more accurately) on one of Maison FEBO’s kroketten. The snacks were so popular that De Borst decided to quit baking bread and pastry. He wanted to focus on the kroket and other similar fried snacks, so he closed the bakery.

In 1960, De Borst opened his first automatiek (automat), around the corner from his former bakery. It wasn’t the first automat in the Netherlands, but it would be the first FEBO automat of many!

FEBO today

At the moment, there are more than 66 FEBO automats in the Netherlands. More than 22 automats are located in Amsterdam alone. That number is still growing, making FEBO the nr. 1 automat company in the Netherlands.

The automat: typically Dutch?

Why is the automat (and FEBO) still so popular in the Netherlands, when all other countries have abandoned it? Perhaps it’s because FEBO has tried to keep up with the times by adding a delivery service and drive-thru locations? Or because FEBO’s kroketten are just sooo good?

Whatever it is, it seems like the automat is here to stay. And even if the automat didn’t start out Dutch, it’s hard to find them outside the Netherlands nowadays, making it one of those typically Dutch things in the end.

Have you ever pulled a kroket out of the wall, as they say in Dutch? Let us know in the comment section below!