Epic Win: Fotomat
Submitted by katsak
Fotomat was a chain of drive-thru photo-development labs. They were around in the ’60s, but were at their peak in the ’80s, when there were over 4,000 of these kiosks scattered about the country. But as our desire to shoot on 35mm film waned for want of fancy new digital photos, Fotomats slowly disappeared.
As a company, Fotomat transitioned to an online printing service for digital photos, but has sadly announced that they are discontinuing services as of July.
wtf?
Ahhh…these were fun. Too bad the one by us kept getting hit by cars and knocked over
Sorry to all of the fotomat fans about the hijack… but what kind of car is that cute little convertible in the foreground ?
A Mustang maybe?
Wasn’t there an episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete that
had Ellen working at a Fotomat?
I know there was an episode of Dexters Lab that had one.
Blast from the ass
One day photo? It took a full day? This is a fail.
Not more than “maybe next Thursday photo”…
They weren’t actually photo “labs”. You dropped off your film there, and every day around noon, a truck from the regional photo lab picked up all the undeveloped film and dropped off the prints from the day before. At the time, there was no One Hour photo finishing in drugstores, etc. It was all overnight.
Fans of “That 70’s Show” will recgonize the “Photo Hut” where Hyde and Tommy Chong worked. They didn’t even have thir own bathrooms. You had to walk to a nearby store (they were always inthe parking lots of strip malls).
The automobile is a Fiat 850 Spider, which was powered by a tiny 4-cylinder engine located in the rear of the car. Sadly, very few 850’s are still around , as repairing them is more costly that the cars are worth. The presence of the 850, as well as the other cool cars in the background, only enhances the winning nature of this photograph!
Wow, you know your cars… I’ve never heard of that one.
Sheesh, I couldn’t imagine driving a car which has less than 50hp. o_O
So you say that Americans can actually handle cars with RWD, rear mounted engine and gearstick regardless of the power?
Actually, I was going to say that I’d rather have the Spider. There’s one in pretty good shape at a junkyard not far from here. It keeps calling my name…
It’s well known that Snow White used to get her photos developed here, even though they lost her film every time. Every day you could hear her singing, “Some day, my prints will come”
Argh
…Ok, I have to go and lie down now.
Some photo lab chain similar to Fotomat actually used that slogan line.
Without my local Fotomat to precess my little Regular-8 movies, I would not have been able to begin my career in the film/media industry. I had to wait A WEEK, or more, to get my movies back!
As a young boy, it was also neat that you could sit there on your bike and chat with the pretty Fotomates, who, in retrospect, were probably glad to have anyone around to talk with. And I thought I was making a connection . . .
“process”
“I can see it all now, this is gonna be just like last summer. You fell in love with that girl at the Fotomat, you bought forty dollars worth of f##kin’ film, and you never even talked to her… You don’t even own a camera.”
-Fast Times At Ridgemont High
After a fotomat closed in Cranston,RI the booth became The Condom Hut for a short while.
http://www.quahog.org/include/image.php?id=265
I worked at Fotomat in the 70’s. The female employees were “Fotomates”, the males were called “Fotomacs”. Annoying uniforms, but a pretty good job as after school jobs go. And the best part was looking at the photos when they arrived from the lab!
Rumor had it that one of the “Fotomates” in our local shopping center ran a tidy little weed business from the booth. I never got drive through service there myself though.
When one of the last Fotomats (about 5 times the size of the one in the pic) around here closed in the 90’s, it became a pager store, then a cell phone place, now it’s a nothing.
I have a friend that would love to buy an old Fotomat & put it in his backyard.
oh I feel old.
Wow, I remember these. They eventually started getting turned into little locksmith stores you get to have your keys cut while you wait. Oooh so much memories!
I saw one of these turned into a chinese take-away.
Drag I didn’t think to get a pic.
Photomats survived in some locations as late as the 90’s, with the last of them vanishing before 95. It wasn’t digital that did them in, but rather companies like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and other big box type stores that really spelled the end of the small “photomat” kiosk. In the end, these places couldn’t keep up with the demand, even though many, especially those under the Kodak brand, had began to offer one hour photo developing.
As to why they finally died out? Ironically it was the same reason they were built in the first place. Convenience. You see, back when these things first came out, it was more convenient to drop your photos off while running your errands. This was due to the fact that most stores were located down town or further in the strip malls. However with the advent of stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and TG&Y (who remembers that one?) offering photo developing in the store, it became more convenient to bring your film along with you and drop it off inside the store. Since you could (in many cases at least) get it back within an hour or so, it prompted you to hang around and thus do your shopping. By 95, the little kiosks couldn’t keep up.
holy hell, you threw out TG&Y!!!! Talk about a blast from the past. Too bad there aren’t many stores like that anymore. So much better than Big Lots… *sigh*
Back on topic. The last remaining Fotomat (Fotohut, actually) in my area was just recently demolished. Though it, like most, evolved into first a locksmith, then coffee kiosk. Now it’s the parking lot for a CVS Pharmacy, which sits directly across the street from a Rite-Aid. Go figure.
Most of the ones around my area are all espresso stands now.
Chainsaw and Dave worked in one in “Summer School”!
We have a fotomat booth on the corner. It’s was a flower shop for a while, now it’s kind of an “redbox” automated DVD dispenser.
Marty McFly Killed The Fotomat!!!!
is this picture in high quallity available?
Heh, there is actually still an old Fotomat stand still standing in the parking lot of the strip mall in Newton, NJ. One parking lot over from the old Jamesway building.
Ah, Jamesway, how I miss thee!
~~Bee