Fotomat - #21

Fotomat was a retail chain of drive-thru kiosks that handled photo development and sold a limited supply of flim and photo accessories.

Founded by Preston Fleet, the first location opened in Point Loma, California in the early 1960's. At its peak, over 4,000 Fotomats filled shopping center parking lots around the country to provide a convenient, overnight way to have your photos developed (at least convenient at the time!).

Fotomat had both franchise and company-owned locations and constant disputes over territories created a very litigious relationship between the company and its franchisees.

The company was sold to Konica in 1986 and again to Viewpoint (a computer graphics software company) in 2002.

"In addition to photo developing, Fotomat was one of the first companies to offer movies for rent on videocassette—a new concept then—starting in December 1979. Customers would browse through a small catalog, call a number and order the movie or movies of their choice. The following day, the customer would pick up the cassette at the Fotomat kiosk of their choice. The rental cost was $12 per title (equivalent to $50 in 2023) and the customer could keep it for five days. The price was later reduced to $9.95 for a five-day rental. The service was called "Fotomat Drive-Thru Movies."" [Wikipedia]

As most know, overnight photo development became obsolete in the 1980s with the launch of one-hour photo locations and eventually digital cameras. To meet this changing landscape, Fotomat tries its hand at digital image processing at Fotomat.com until it ceased operations in late 2009.

Some of the Fotomat kiosks were converted to drive-thru coffee kiosks and other uses. This 2017 post on the Messy Nessy website shows great photos of  "What became of America's Drive-Thru Fotomat?"