Restauranteur, Stratis Morfogen, brings forth a blast from the past by re-introducing the Automat and revitalizing the concept of fast food.
Stratis Morfogen holding a pack of Pastrami dumplings fresh out of the food locker
Following the success of Brooklyn Chop House and their wildly popular dumpling selection, Morfogen conceptualized Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is a one-of-a-kind “Quick Serve Restaurant”(QSR) that will change the fast-food world as we know it.
I was so fortunate to preview Brooklyn Dumpling Shop before its official opening on May 19, 2021, and get the opportunity to ask Morfogen how he cooked up this idea. Morfogen shared that when creating the appetizer menu for ‘Brooklyn Chop House,’ he considered that Chop House-style restaurants usually have sandwiches. Still, with his already unique concept of fusing Chinese food with an American Steak house, he wanted to turn his soups and sandwiches into dumplings. French Onion Soup, Lamb Gyro’s, and Pastrami sandwiches and more, were transformed into dumplings, and people literally ATE THEM UP. Morfogen wanted to take the success of Brooklyn Chop House’s dumplings and “expand into a fast-food setting.” “I wanted to get back to my greek diner roots because I love fast food or fast-casual done well, but I don’t like why so many fail. With 7 out of 10 in fast food, services fail within 3 years, and I wanted to understand why.” shared Morfogen. With payroll bring the number one reason for fast food restaurants, Morfogen wanted to ensure that he was using the most cost-effective way to create his fast-food restaurant. After revisiting a memory of eating from an automat as a child, he looked more into how he could utilize what he found to be “single-handedly the greatest fast food distribution equipment ever designed.”
The original Horn & Hardart Automat in NYC in 1912
The Automat in at the Brooklyn Dumpling House in 2021
What the **** is an “automat,” you ask? I wondered the same thing…In the early 1900’s all the way to the 1970’s the Automat was where many Americans could walk into a restaurant and drop their coins in vending machine-like apparatus and pull a full course meal out of a heated food locker and enjoy. Unfortunately, technology not moving fast enough, and fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s starting popping up; this became the downfall of the automat and made the concept obsolete. That is until Morfogen combined 21st-century technology with the automat to create this incredible Quick Serve Restaurant that has never been seen in America. When you first walk into Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, you immediately see a kitchen behind glass so you can see everything that’s being made and a how. Next to the kitchen are Brooklyn Dumpling Shop’s state-of-the-art food locker technology from ONDO, powered by Panasonic that will provide guests with an easy, safe option to pick up orders from temperature-controlled lockers. To place an order, you can use your phone or the touch screen kiosk inside the restaurant. Once you place your order, you’ll receive a barcode that you scan by the food lockers, and when your food is ready, your food locker will open up with your fresh dumplings. What could be cooler than that?! I’ll tell you! Because they don’t accept cash and zero human interaction in the food ordering process (which is VERY COVID SAFE FRIENDLY), you can use their bitcoin ATM in store.
With all the fun and excitement surrounding the experience of ordering these dumplings, I was dying to get some in my mouth. It was NO surprise, THEY WERE AMAZING! I am a fan of soup dumplings and french onion soup so I knew I would love them. However, I was very curious about what a Pastrami dumpling might taste like and was shocked at how much I enjoyed them! Also on the menu was the “Impossible Dumpling” for our non-meaters. For seafood lovers, the Pac Seafood Dumplings were amazing and so cute!
PAC-MAN Seafood Crab, Lobster, and Shrimp Dumpling.
Below is the full Brooklyn Dumpling Shop menu for the May 19th opening of NYC’s first Quick Serve Restaurant.
