Quisisana

This article is about the German automat company Quisisana. For the Italian palace Reggia di Quisisana, see Reggia di Quisisana.
The world's first automat "Quisisana" at 13 Leipziger Straße in Berlin Germany. Illustration from 1897.

Quisisana was a German company that introduced the world's first automat restaurant in June 1895 on the grounds of the Berlin Zoological Garden, Germany.[1] The establishment was considered a success, selling 5,400 sandwiches, 9,000 glasses of wine and cordials, and 22,000 cups of coffee on the first Sunday of business.[2] Quisisana also manufactured automat machines and equipment,[3] including a milk vending machine which was adapted for use in German schools.[4]

The name Quisisana comes from the Italian phrase qui si sana [ˈkwi ssi ˈsaːna] which roughly translates to "here one is healed" or "here you become healthy".[5] Automat is a loanword from German for automaton which was adopted from Latin automatus, originally borrowed from the Greek autómatos (αὐτόματος), meaning "acting of itself".[6]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Smith Oliver 2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Whitaker, Jan (3 May 2010). "Before Horn & Hardart: European automats". Restaurant-ing through history. Archived from the original on 2013-01-04. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Grimes 2009 p. 189 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Schreiber (1954). Automatic Selling. New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 78.
  5. ^ "qui si sana". ProZ. 2002. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  6. ^ Kluge, Friedrich (2001). Seebold, Elmar (ed.). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (24th Revised and Expanded Ed. Auflage ed.). Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3110174731.