All I can do is suggest as a foreigner, given that I'm not on the ground. New Zealand's relative isolation is a mixed blessing, because it can keep safe, except when the virus spreads from within, at which point the small area can become a trap, not unlike ships during the start of the pandemic. I think that's what drives the mesures you describe.
Another suggestion is a concept that took off like a rocket in the US last year. Since many restaurants had to close, their only source of income became takeaway, curb side pickup and delivery. Very quickly chefs closed their brick and mortar locations and opened business utilizing a kitchen concept known as "ghost kitchen."
Since people are ordering online anyway, there's no need for a physical location and the monetary investment on a physical location becomes unnecessary. Someone had the idea of building a large structure with many professional kitchens for rent. You can start your virtual restaurant and offer professionally cooked meals delivered by way of the many delivery services which already existed before the pandemic. You staff works at a booth in a ghost kitchen, and you supply all your ingredients and utensils, while the cooking hardware and the pickup logistics (delivery drivers waiting at the lobby) are handled by the ghost kitchen staff. It's a genius idea, really. Anyone can sell food this way.
The utility of the ghost kitchen goes well beyond pandemic survival. You have several food trucks downtown but not enough space to prepare quality restaurant food? Use a ghost kitchen, have someone bring all your prepped ingredients, or eveb finished dishes. You don't know if people in town will like Jamaican-Moroccan fusion food? Open a virtual restaurant and rent a ghost kitchen, if your virtual restaurant doesn't work out you never had to hire front of the house staff or rent a location.
So what does this have to do with automats, you say? Well, for starters there's no rule that says that an automat needs a kitchen in the back of the house. Why not have any number of virtual kitchens deliver food to an automat? The automat simply becomes a distribution station with individual, isolated booths for patrons. The booths could be air conditioned and with access from the street, like a motel. A "Mestaurant." There never is any contact between patrons (say a couple out for dinner, or a family on Sunday brunch), because they enter the dining booth from the parking lot directly from their car.
The food could be delivered from any number of pre selected virtual kitchens. You fancy American Barbecue while your wife craves French Provencal, and the kids want Pizza? NO PROBLEM. There is no limit to how many menus you can choose from, provided the Mestaurant™ is within the service radio of the ghost kitchen hosting your favorite virtual restaurant. You can pre-select through the aether net before leaving home, or if you have the time to wait, you could order while inside the booth, with standard refreshments and starters, provided by the Motor Restaurant Corporation with a guarantee of service within an allotted time frame*.
The Mestaurant could be deep in a wooded area, with breathtaking views of nature, as long as it's close enough to a ghost kitchen. Better yet. Why not throw in automated delivery by drone? After the patrons have left, the dining room has all its air evacuated and a cleanup crew is called to clean and prepare the booth for the next patrons.
The Mestaurant™ offers the best of both worlds, contacless 5-star restaurant service and drive through convenience. It's the ultimate in dystopian atomic age dining!
*Conditions Apply. Offer is void where prohibited. Local traffic laws always apply. Offer limited to service from Monday through Saturday 5pm to 1am. Offer void in the event of a major disaster within the Mestaurant™ service radius or vicinity, such as hurricane/cyclone, tornado, earthquake, tsunami or volcanic eruption.
