There were also automats, automated restaurants serving all food through a vending machine (or more accurately, wall). Classically all for a single fixed price (a nickle).

These are featured in several cultural references, such as the 1962 Delbert Mann film That Touch of Mink, and PDQ Bach's "Concerto for Horn and Hardart" (being named after a prominent New York City automat chain).

Mink: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Y3GXMB4VPY8>

Concerto: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=NT6bxlnS1Is>

And what some of us might not have the context for, is that grocery stores at the time were usually clerk-serviced; Just like you don't pump your own gas in New Jersey, at the time the norm was that you handed the clerk a list of products and they fetched them from the shelves for you.

Arguably this model has a great deal of compatibility with robotic compact storage, especially in high-land-value areas.

Wow, this man was decades ahead of his time. My hat off.

Thank you for that rabbit hole. Interesting that the same guy gave us both of the present day shopping systems just one was too far ahead

Incredible, they were 75 years ahead of their time.

Had a large-format (for its time) chain store in Canada like that until 1996: https://www.tvo.org/article/what-happened-to-consumers-distr...

Basically a catalogue store without shipping to your door.

Most of small town India is this. Small store, one person, usually owner or their family member, doing everything.

Indeed. Always handy if you needed four candles.

Yeah, that could be true. I'm not sure how many people are similar to me, who are allergic to "window shopping" and just want to buy, pay and exit. My Costco session is less than 30 minutes (from parking to back to car) in average.

I do research price, though, so if they show a big DISCOUNT sign and is more or less honest with it, I'll probably grab some, too.

In the dream customers just walk around and make orders. It’s actually old style I think, but with robots. Yeah it’s a bit like cash and carry, but customers didn’t move into the sections. They just get to browse the samples robots carried to them.

TBH, now that I think about it, the dream was way more vague than what I described in the reply. My brain probably reasoned about the idea subconsciously.

In my home town, they tore the Best down and replaced it with a Best Buy, which was very confusing.

Yeah, something like this.

The only exception in warehouse was the cafeteria. I guess my brain wanted to make something retro futuristic so it made the cafeteria “retro” — manned by humans and cooked by humans too. There were even balloons inside now that I recall…

Now I'm picturing Hasidic robots.

I remember those stores as I came from a similar background. One vital difference is that they all have workers who have a straight face and don’t give it a fuck about customer service.

Then in the 90s they were all washed away by the new ones.