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Is This Upcoming New York Dumpling Shop A New Dining Trend?

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I remember the thrill of going to the Automat as a child clutching a handful of coins to pop into the slot, then opening the silver door of glass compartments and taking out spaghetti and cherry pie, my favorites. When Brooklyn Dumpling Shop opens in New York’s East Village in July, a new generation of diners will have that experience updated to current times and technology with a selection of 32 dumplings they’ve likely never seen before.

“My background from my father is Greek diner, sandwiches,” explains owner Stratis Morfogen, “and I’ve opened Chinese restaurants (Philippe Chow, Jue Lan Club)  so there is a clash of cultures. I’m also the father of three and I’ve found that you can introduce different foods in dumplings. They would ignore them as sandwiches but as dumplings they will eat them like M&Ms.” In his most recent restaurant, Brooklyn Chop House which opened in New York’s Financial District last year, the most popular item is the LSD which combines a two pound salt and pepper lobster, two pound ginger and garlic lobster, three pound dry-aged porterhouse steak and seven pound authentic Peking Duck in one dish.

It stands to reason, then, that the selection of dumplings in the new shop will also showcase an unusual blend of ingredients including bacon cheeseburger, Philly cheesesteak, French onion soup, pastrami and lamb gyro. There will also be spring rolls with fillings of lobster, Peking Duck and vegetable and dessert dumplings including fried apple and frozen hot chocolate ice cream sundae.

Morfogen was already considering the concept of 32 dumplings available 24 hours a day with self ordering kiosks when COVID-19 struck. A friend then suggested he shift to the Automat format which started in Berlin and expanded to the U.S. when Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart licensed the technology, opened the first one in Philadelphia in 1902 and in New York in 1912. “It’s really interesting when you look at the history of the Automat,” he says. “It started in 1895 but really exploded after the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic when people had their own form of social distancing.” Once prices increased in the 1970’s, though, but the technology didn’t—there were no slots for dollar bills and no credit card readers—combined with the rise of fast food chains such a McDonald’s, the Automat’s popularity started to fade. The last one closed in New York in 1991.

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop takes the basic automated concept (which, admittedly, has been tried by others with varying results in recent years) but presents an ordering/pickup process dictated by health concerns and current technology. First, before customers enter, they walk through a temperature sensor reconfigured from metal detectors that Morfogen used in previous nightclubs that he owned and if their temperature is above 99.6, they’re not allowed in. Customers can pre-order food on their phones and get or set texts about when to pick it up or order from kiosks in the shop that they don’t touch; they just hover above it to make selections and then hover their credit cards to pay. Once the order is placed, a red light flashes above the compartment, it then changes to yellow when the order is two minutes out and green when it’s ready to be picked up. Two customers are allowed in at one time and they scan their phone to lift the selection out.

Apparently, delivery will also be available through the third party food delivery apps. That would be the easiest and least contact way to try those pastrami or cheeseburger dumplings. But part of the experience is opening those glass doors.

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