The Lego snackbar and automatiek

This is my snackbar with associated automatiek, where the congregation of VW vans and pickups would indicate it's lunchtime at the construction sites nearby.

An automatiek is a primarily Dutch phenomenon, which is why Lego offered a beam with that word amongst a set of shop signs for the Dutch market. What it refers to is called an automat in English, and is a large vending machine selling snackbar food. These consist of many little compartments, usually heated, having a glass door each to see the food inside. Because an automatiek has one or more walls of such compartments, the Dutch expression "eating out of the wall" means buying a snack at such an establishment. 

As a note, the first automat was in Berlin, according to wikipedia; the format being popular in the US in the thirties before taking firm root in the Netherlands. 

The banks of compartments inside my automatiek are represented by columns of transparent 1x1 plates. Both the snackbar and the automatiek have an entrance at the sides of the building; the one for the automatiek allowing extra access to restock the compartments from the rear.

Because both snackbar and automatiek printed beams stem from the late fifties, the rest of the building was also made from cellulose acetate bricks and plates with the waffle pattern underneath. The exceptions are the transparent plates inside which are later parts in ABS.