Howard Johnson’s
In 1925, a soda fountain in a local pharmacy in Quincy, Massachusetts, marked the beginning of Howard Johnson's. It was the biggest restaurant chain in the country by 1970. It provided casual dining, including its renowned fried clam strips, and 28 varieties of ice cream. It was easily recognized by its orange roofs, cupolas, and Simple Simon and the Pieman emblem. Although most restaurants were franchised separately by the middle of the 1960s, they nevertheless regularly operated alongside hotels with the same name.
The corporation acquired the rights to run eateries in turnpike rest areas in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the 1940s and succeeding decades, giving them uncontested locations. In 1925, a soda fountain in a local pharmacy in Quincy, Massachusetts, marked the beginning of Howard Johnson's. It was the biggest restaurant chain in the country by 1970. It provided casual dining, including its renowned fried clam strips, and 28 varieties of ice cream. It was easily recognized by its orange roofs, cupolas, and Simple Simon and the Pieman emblem. Although most restaurants were franchised separately by the middle of the 1960s, they nevertheless regularly operated alongside hotels with the same name.
The corporation acquired the rights to run eateries in turnpike rest areas in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the 1940s and succeeding decades, giving them uncontested locations. Although Howard Johnson's hotels continue to operate, the once-famous restaurant franchise is no longer in operation as of 2016, when the final authentic Howard Johnson's restaurant in Bangor, Maine, shuttered.
