The Rise and Fall of Fotomat

There was a Fotomat in the parking lot of the Acme Supermarket in my hometown. It was still open when I was a kid but barely. That same supermarket started processing film as well and that took away a lot of it business. Still, it didn’t close all at once. It was open less frequently at first. Then one day, it closed and never re-opened. Finally, years later someone unceremoniously hauled it away.Fotomat is worth remembering for more than its little kiosks. The company was way ahead of its time in many ways. It built a business around drive up photo processing when that was still a new idea, and later rented home movies years before Blockbuster existed. The problem was that Fotomat often seemed reluctant to move too far beyond the business it already knew, even when it had a head start on what was coming next.Support the Retroist on PatreonFotomat started with a man named Charles Brown (Charlie Brown!?), who built the first version of the idea in Florida in 1965. It was recognizable…