The Restaurant Chain That Ruled The '60s And '70s: Now Defunct, But Never Forgotten

In 2022, the last restaurant in a chain that spanned nearly 100 years of history closed its doors in Lake George, New York; that chain is Howard Johnson's. Once the largest restaurant chain in the U.S., Howard Johnson's was something like a paradise to families traveling the highways of America. Parents could count on a good, hot meal while kids could enjoy food geared just to them from its children's menu, sign up for its birthday club, and start on a quest to eat all 28 flavors of the ice cream the restaurant served.

At its peak in the 1960s and 70s, Howard Johnson's boasted around 1,000 locations from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, as well as a chain of associated hotels (some still in operation) and sister restaurants under the parent company. However, with the rise of fast food changing how Americans ate, it would prove difficult for the chain to stay afloat. Despite its demise, Howard Johnson's has left an indelible mark on American history, most notably on the highway system that crisscrosses the country — and in many of our minds as we recall seeing the distinctive orange roof on family road trips.

As so many of these stories do, Howard Johnson's (HoJo's) has humble beginnings: just a young man, Howard Deering Johnson, selling ice cream out of stands set up along the Massachusetts shoreline in 1925. He would add savory foods, like frankforts (aka hot dogs with all the fixin's) and fried clam strips — the latter of which prompted Johnson to seek out Maine baker J.J. Nissen to create the open-top hot dog buns that are synonymous with lobster rolls today — Johnson wanted a bun that wouldn't topple over, spilling out the fried goodness it contained. These stands proved so successful that Johnson was able to open a restaurant, and then another, by 1929.

His plans for expansion were initially dashed by the stock market crash and beginning of the Great Depression that year, but genius finds a way — Johnson actually began franchising his growing restaurant business, so that by World War II, there were over 100 locations up and down the Eastern seaboard. During the great crisis that followed, some restaurants closed up while everything and everyone contributed to the war effort, but by the 1950s, HoJo's was once again thriving.

In 1959, Howard D. Johnson senior passed the torch to his son, Howard B. Johnson; by this time, the Howard Johnson's (HoJo's) empire had come to encompass attached motor lodges as well, making the chain a double-threat where travelers could eat a good meal without having to leave the motel premises. By the late 1960s, the restaurant-motel chain also opened its first Ground Round restaurants (a brand that is experiencing a rebirth in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, as a married couple opens a new restaurant bearing the name).

But despite reaching over 1,000 restaurants, with over 500 attached motels into the 1970s, the proliferation of fast food chains was starting to have an impact on HoJo's bottom line (much like fast-casual dining has contributed to sit-down restaurant TGI Fridays' bankruptcy today). When the younger Johnson had the opportunity to sell in 1980, he took it, to the tune of $630 million.

This was the beginning of the end for Howard Johnson's, and throughout the 80s and 90s, and even into the early 2000s, different owners tried to reinvigorate and revive the brand, to no avail, and the remaining locations gradually closed their doors, until the very last in Lake George, New York said goodbye. However, hotels operating with the Howard Johnson's name, under the ownership of Wyndham, are still open to weary travelers all over the country.