Brooklyn Dumpling Shop opens in Garden City with automat-style service

“Technology killed the automat,” explains Brooklyn Dumpling Shop founder Stratis Moforgen, but a smartphone-enabled automat is alive and well at Garden City’s newest spot for dumplings. The franchise’s fourth New York location joins those in Staten Island, Queens and the brand’s flagship in Manhattan.

Diners can order dumplings ahead of time via a smartphone or from a kiosk at the store. When the order is ready, customers receive a text indicating a marked, temperature-controlled locker on the automat wall that opens automatically when the customer scans their bar code. Voilà, dumplings!

The idea came to Moforgen, a third-generation restaurateur who grew up in Garden City, in 2018 when the sandwich-inspired dumplings on the menu at his Brooklyn Chop House restaurant drew praise from customers. As he watched his daughters, then 12 and 13, become consumed by their phones, the seed for a dumplings-via-smartphone-controlled-automat was planted. The pandemic only helped the touchless service model take off, Moforgen said.

Although traditional pork and vegetable Chinese dumplings are on the menu, it's the specialty dumplings that derive their roots from Moforgen’s father, who owned restaurants across the island. Diner classics like Ruebens, chicken Parms, cheeseburgers and lamb gyros get the dumpling treatment as “mini 2-ounce sandwiches.” There are also mac-and-cheese dumplings, soup dumplings, and breakfast dumplings made from croissants and filled with bacon, egg, and cheese or spinach, egg, and feta. Dessert dumplings include peanut butter and jelly or apple cinnamon.

The Brooklyn Dumpling Shop recently added bowls to its offerings, with diners choosing kung pao shrimp or buffalo plant-based chicken as the base of their bowl, alongside rice, salad or lo mein noodles. Side dishes include sweet and spicy slaw, edamame and fries. Dumplings, of which there are five to an order, begin at $6 for traditional flavors and $8 for specialty flavors. Bowls begin at $14.

The chain's dumplings will be available in Walmart nationwide later this year, sans automat.

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. 684 Stewart Ave., Garden City; open daily 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 516-246-9667, brooklyndumplingshop.com

By Marie Elena Martinez

marieelena.martinez@newsday.com@mariesworlds

A global freelancer who has checked her suitcase to raise her young daughter on her native Long Island, Marie Elena will always make time for good mezcal, even better tacos and killer conversation. Preferably, in a corner bar seat. She can be found on Instagram at @mariesworldeats.