You Can Buy Burgers from Vending Machines in the Netherlands

While it might seem incredibly bizarre to foreigners, in the Netherlands it is common for fast food restaurants owned or franchised by FEBO to serve burgers and other fried foods through vending machines. This unusual type of service allows customers to quickly purchase classic Dutch fast food and has existed in the Netherlands since the 1960s.
In 1942, Dutch entrepreneur Johan de Borst opened a regular bakery on Amsterdam’s Ferdinand Bolstraat under the title FEBO. This venture’s name was derived from the first two letters of Ferdinand and Bolstraat, creating a compound that reflected its location. After launching several other bakeries in Amsterdam under the same title, de Borst decided to establish an automated takeaway restaurant on Karperweg in 1960, where he would sell homemade, meat filled croquettes.
At the time automated restaurants were common in other cities throughout Europe and North America. Although they gradually fell out of favour elsewhere in the world, they continued to attract customers in the Netherlands and FEBO’s vending machine restaurants gradually became a nationwide phenomena. Today, there are around sixty FEBOs in the Netherlands — twenty-seven of which are found in Amsterdam.