FEBO

Johan de Borst opened a bakery called Maison FEBO in Amsterdam in 1941, named after the street it stood on, the Ferdinand Bolstraat. By 1960 it had turned into an automatiek, a snack bar with a wall of small glass hatches: you put coins in a slot, the little door unlocks, and you take out a hot kroket, frikandel or hamburger that the kitchen has loaded from behind. The idea goes back to Berlin, where the first automat restaurant opened in 1895, but FEBO made it a Dutch institution.

The business stayed in the family, passing to De Borst’s son Hans in 1990 and later to his grandson Dennis. It grew mostly through franchising, to around sixty shops, and some branches are open around the clock. The snacks are made in the company’s own production centre in Amsterdam-Noord.

Hamburgers sit in the wall next to the krokets, with a counter for fries and drinks. The burgers are small and cheap, made with Dutch beef on sesame buns, and they come in very Dutch flavours: with peanut satay sauce and fried onions, with shoarma sauce, or with remoulade. Most come as a double on a three-piece bun.

About sixty shops in the Netherlands, more than twenty of them in Amsterdam.

• Burger & Lobster (United Kingdom, since 2011). A Mayfair restaurant that opened with no menu: a burger or a lobster, same price. Also built on beef, cooked onions and a special sauce.
• Sunset Boulevard (Denmark, since 1996). Denmark’s biggest home-grown fast-food chain: a sandwich shop from Odense that became a burger chain with a béarnaise habit. Also built on beef, crispy onions and cooked onions.
• Burgermeister (Germany, since 2006). The Berlin burger chain that started in an old public toilet under the U-Bahn. Also built on beef, crispy onions and cooked onions.
• Peter Pane (Germany, since 2016). The German burger-and-cocktail chain that split from Hans im Glück. Also built on beef, crispy onions and a special sauce.