Automats were “restaurants” without waiters. Self-service vending machines lined the walls; patrons could choose whatever food they wanted for a combination of nickels. Horn & Hardart opened the first Automat in 1902; at one point it was the world’s largest restaurant chain, serving 800,000 people a day. Automats typically had round tables with white Carrara glass tops, as we see in the Hopper painting. And they were well known for the best coffee in town.
Wikipedia suggests that the first automat was opened in Berrin in 1895. Not in 1902.
