Restaurants where guests could choose their dish from a menu first appeared only in the 1800s. In the following century the range of eateries in the Netherlands grew and became more international, with Chinese restaurants, Italian pizzerias and French bistros. 1931 saw the opening in Amsterdam of the first ‘automat food bar’, or automatiek, where people could buy snacks by putting a coin in a vending machine. The first FEBO automatiek opened in 1960. With time this type of restaurant disappeared from other countries, but in the Netherlands a ‘snack from the wall’ is still as popular as ever!
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