(1) Fueled by the nickels of new legions of white collar workers and immigrants who could not speak English and therefore could not order at a restaurant, the automat prospered in the early 1900s and handily survived the Depression.(2) When we got back from lunch, I realised I'd left mine back in the automat .(3) When the detective in The Erasers eats lunch, it is in an automat where food is reduced to u2018cubesu2019 and u2018replicas.u2019(4) A lone female figure sits alone drinking in an automat , an area supplied with vending machines that is pure Americana.(5) By the 1920s, some restaurants and automats were heavily populated with gay men, especially late at night, and a few places openly catered to them.
