Howard Johnson's

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Howard Johnson's Restaurants, LLC (commonly shortened to HoJo) is an American multinational fast casual restaurant chain, founded in 1925 by Howard Deering Johnson. Headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, Howard Johnson's has been well-known since its inception for its 28 flavors of ice cream.

Howard Johnson's restaurants originally started as a single location in Quincy, Massachusetts, and grew into a substantial restaurant chain in the decades that followed. By the 1950s, the company expanded operations by opening hotels, then known as Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges, which were often located next to restaurants. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it had become the largest restaurant chain in the U.S., with its combined company-owned and franchised outlets.

Howard Johnson's restaurants were spun off by then-owners Marriott in 1986. Howard Johnson hotels and motels are now part of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, while the frozen food grocery line is now owned by the Cariz Food Company. The three companies share the Howard Johnson's trademark and cooperate in running the Howard Johnson's Museum in Quincy, Massachusetts.

History[]

Early years[]

In 1925, Howard Deering Johnson borrowed $2,000 to buy and operate a small corner pharmacy in Wollaston, a neighborhood in Quincy, Massachusetts. Johnson was surprised to find it easy to pay back the money lent to him, after discovering his recently installed soda fountain had become the busiest part of his drugstore. Eager to ensure that his store would remain successful, Johnson decided to come up with a new ice cream recipe. Some sources say the recipe was based on his mother's homemade ice creams and desserts, while others say that it was from a local German immigrant, who either sold or gave Johnson the ice cream recipe. Regardless, the new recipe made the ice cream more flavorful due to an increased content of butterfat. Eventually Johnson came up with 28 flavors of ice cream. Johnson is quoted as saying, "I thought I had every flavor in the world. That '28' (flavors of ice cream) became my trademark."

Throughout the summers of the late 1920s, Johnson opened up concession stands on beachfront property along the coast of Massachusetts. The stands sold soft drinks, hot dogs, and ice cream. Each stand proved to be successful. With his success becoming more noticeable every year, Johnson convinced local bankers to lend him enough money to operate a sit-down restaurant. Negotiations were made and, toward the end of the decade, the first Howard Johnson's restaurant opened in Quincy. The first Howard Johnson's restaurant featured fried clams, baked beans, chicken pot pies, frankfurters, ice cream, and soft drinks.

The first Howard Johnson's restaurant and Howard Johnson's company received an incredible break in 1929, owing to an unusual set of circumstances: The mayor of nearby Boston, Malcolm Nichols, banned the planned production of Eugene O'Neill's play, Strange Interlude, in the city of Boston. Rather than fight the mayor, the Theatre Guild moved the production to Quincy. The five-hour play was presented in two parts with a dinner break. The first Howard Johnson's restaurant was near the theater; hundreds of influential Bostonians flocked to the restaurant. Through word of mouth, more Americans became familiar with the Howard Johnson's company.

Expansion in the 1930s and 1940s[]

Johnson wanted to expand his company, but the stock market crash of 1929 prevented him from doing so. After waiting a few years and maintaining his business, Johnson was able to persuade an acquaintance in 1932 to open a second Howard Johnson's restaurant in Orleans, Massachusetts. The second restaurant was franchised and not company-owned. This was one of America's first franchising agreements.

By the end of 1936, there were 39 more franchised restaurants, creating a total of 41 Howard Johnson's restaurants. By 1939, there were 107 Howard Johnson's restaurants along various American East Coast highways, generating revenues of $10.5 million. In less than 14 years, Johnson directed a franchise network of over 10,000 employees with 170 restaurants, many serving 1.5 million people a year.

The unique icons of orange roofs, cupolas, and weather vanes on Howard Johnson properties helped patrons identify the chain's restaurants and motels. The restaurant's trademark Simple Simon and the Pieman logo was created by artist John Alcott in the 1930s.

By 1944, only 12 Howard Johnson's restaurants remained in business. The effects of war rationing had crippled the company. Johnson managed to maintain his business by serving commissary food to war workers and U.S. Army recruits. When the Pennsylvania Turnpike (1940), and later the Ohio Turnpike, New Jersey Turnpike and Connecticut Turnpike were built, Johnson bid for and won exclusive rights to serve drivers at service station turnoffs through the turnpike systems.

In the process of recovering from these losses, in 1947 the Howard Johnson's company began construction of 200 new restaurants throughout the American Southeast and Midwest. By 1951, the sales of the Howard Johnson's company totaled $115 million.

1950s and 1960s[]

By 1954, there were 400 Howard Johnson's restaurants in 32 states, about 10% of which were extremely profitable company-owned turnpike restaurants; the rest were franchises. This was one of the first nationwide restaurant chains. That year, the company opened the first Howard Johnson's motor lodge in Savannah, Georgia. The company employed architects Rufus Nims and Karl Koch to oversee the design of the rooms and gate lodge. Nims had previously worked with the company, designing restaurants. The restaurant's trademark Simple Simon and the Pieman was now joined by a lamplighter character in the firm's marketing of its motels. According to cultural historians, the chain became synonymous with travel among American motorists and vacationers in part because of Johnson's ubiquitous outdoor advertising displays.

While many places sold "fried clams", they were whole, which was not universally accepted by the American dining public. Howard Johnson popularized Soffron Brothers Clam Company's fried clam strips: the "foot" of hard-shelled sea clams. They became popular to eat in this fashion throughout the country.

In 1959, Howard Deering Johnson, who had founded and managed the company since 1925, turned control over to his son, then 26-year-old Howard Brennan Johnson.

The Howard Johnson's Company went public in 1961; there were 605 restaurants, 265 company-owned and 340 franchised, as well as 88 franchised Howard Johnson's motor lodges in 32 states and the Bahamas.

In 1961, Johnson hired New York chefs Pierre Franey and Jacques Pépin to oversee food development at the company's main commissary in Brockton, Massachusetts. Franey and Pépin developed recipes for the company's signature dishes that could be flash frozen and delivered across the country, guaranteeing a consistent product.

Segregation and desegregation[]

While the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1954 struck down segregation in public schools, segregation and maintenance of whites-only public facilities continued in other domains, including the Howard Johnson chain. Segregation in Howard Johnson's restaurants even provoked an international crisis in 1957, when a Howard Johnson eatery in Dover, Delaware refused service to Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, the finance minister of Ghana, prompting a public apology from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, was instrumental in organizing protests and sit-ins at Howard Johnson locations in multiple states. The city of Durham, North Carolina, became especially notable as a focus for action against segregated restaurants and hotels, including Howard Johnson's. On 12 August 1962, attorney and civil rights activist Floyd McKissick initiated the first of multiple rallies and demonstrations against segregated establishments in Durham, including the Howard Johnson's restaurant on Chapel Hill Boulevard, culminating in multiple protests on 18–20 May 1963 resulting in mass arrests as well as an eventual rapprochement with the city government. Future senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, while a student at the University of Chicago in 1962, helped organize a picket of a Howard Johnson's location in Cicero, Illinois, during his time as a student activist for CORE.

In 1966, Howard Johnson's ventured into the growing fast food industry with a quick service version of their sit down restaurants called HoJo Junction. The HoJo Junction chain was a failure and closed in 1973.

1970s[]

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1980s[]

By 1985, many US highway service plaza had sold off their Howard Johnson's restaurants to other chains as result of a phase out of the Howard Johnson's Turnpike/Vending Stores concept leaving very little highway service plaza locations, with Marriott-owned Bob’s Big Boy and/or Roy Rogers restaurants having replaced several of them. In a last ditch effort to boost the restaurant chain's profitability, Marriott developed the HoJo Land brand with Kenner, including toys and kids' dessert makers.

Because Marriott was threatening to close all the company-owned restaurants, the owners of the franchised restaurants feared elimination and banded together in 1986 to create "Franchise Associates Incorporated" (FAI). In 1986, Marriott sold the company-owned restaurants and the rights to the Howard Johnson's Restaurants brand to FAI, effectively giving them the right to operate and maintain Howard Johnson's-branded restaurants, as well as grant new franchises.

In 1984, Howard Johnson's gave their children's menu arguably the biggest overhaul since they phased out the storybook names for the meals; they introduced the Fun Pak, which includes an activity book, crayons, and a toy prize to make their kids meal more like Happy Meals at McDonald's. The Simple Simon character was retired in 1984, and replaced with a kangaroo mascot named HoJoey and a lion named Howardly Lion. This was done in order to make the chain more relevant to the time. HoJoey and Howardly Lion were originally voiced by Noel Blanc and Peter Cullen, and the ads were animated by Boston animator James Lozé. Also at the time, Howard Johnson's introduced a slush drink, SnowJo.

In 1987, FAI chairman George Carter acknowledged that "We have the concept, but it desperately needs to be modernized, internally and externally. Howard Johnson was allowed to become tired and stale. We must get rid of that plastic image... Anything can be salvageable if a great deal of time and money and effort is put in it. And Howard Johnson needs all those same things." At the same time, Howard Johnson's Restaurants started a casual "fern bar" sister chain called H.J. Fern's Pub, with its first location being opened in a converted smaller Howard Johnson's in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In 1989, Philip Goslawski, a former regional manager for the Victoria Station steakhouse chain, became President of Restaurant Operations and Marketing. Under his leadership, he aimed to improve the quality of the food served and make the chain stand out in a competitive market. Goslawski helped organize the brand's major turnaround throughout the 1990s and into the next decade. In 2003, he released his book Back in Blue: The Story of Howard Johnson's Restaurants' Remarkable Comeback, detailing his career as president and CEO of the company. Goslawski left the company in 2008.

1990s[]

In 1990, Howard Johnson's Restaurants Inc. merged with Franchise Associates Incorporated, the chain's largest franchisee, and a major remodeling and rebranding campaign was planned for the chain's locations, with a new blue silver color scheme and all of the locations roofs being repainted blue from orange as part of the "New Generation of HoJo" project.

In 1991, Howard Johnson's did a major overhaul of their menu to win back customers and to better rival casual dinning restaurant chains like TGI Friday's and Applebee's. The in-house branded sodas were replaced with Pepsi products.

In 1992, Howard Johnson's started a family entertainment center to rival Chuck E. Cheese's called JoJo's Pizza Palace, with it's mascot being a female anthropomorphic monkey named JoJo, who was already established as a friend of HoJoey and Howardly Lion beforehand. The JoJo's Pizza Palace chain was shuttered in 1997 with some JoJo's being converted to Howard Johnson's, Down Home Steakhouse, or Red Coach Grill restaurants. JoJo has since been used as a member of the Simple Simon & Friends lineup.

In 1993, Franchise Associates Incorporated was acquired by HESS, and the last of the Howard Johnson's Turnpike/Vending Stores closed completely phasing out the Howard Johnson's Turnpike/Vending Store concept. Howard Johnson's pulled Fun Pak toys based on the Mortal Kombat video game due to due to complaints from parents over the game's violent content, so until the restaurants were allowed to change over the next Fun Pak promo, they just did a "clean up" to get rid of any leftover toys. Select Howard Johnson's restaurants, particularly on the East Coast, also began selling Hess toys, a practice that continued until the chain's sale to Speedway along with Hess' gas stations.

In 1994, Howard Johnson's introduced Down Home Steakhouse, a steakhouse sister chain, opening the first location in Nashua, New Hampshire. Also Howard Johnson's started providing corporate funding for Sesame Street on PBS that lasted until 2010, thought it still provides funding for some other shows on PBS.

In July 1995, the Simple Simon and Pieman mascots were brought back, and have remained as mascots for the chain alongside HoJoey and Howardly Lion since. Maurice LaMarche has provided the voice of Simple Simon since his reintroduction. The dog in the Simple Simon and Pieman logo was also brought back and promoted to a mascot as well, being given the name Brennan (after Howard B. Johnson’s (Howard D. Johnson’s son) middle name). Also in 1995, the first HoJo GoGo concept location was opened in Foxborough, Massachusetts, a fast food/quick service variation of the traditional Howard Johnson's restaurant concept that sold burgers and other typical fast-food fare. The HoJo GoGo name was mostly phased out by 2005, and most HoJo GoGo locations were rebranded to normal Howard Johnson's locations. Additionally, Howard Johnson's also became the official ice cream of Paramount Parks. In the same year, Howard Johnson's Restaurants purchased Carletti's, a fast casual Italian-American diner chain.

In 1997, Howard Johnson's introduced the HoJo Gang concept, wherein a rotating cast of celebrities, current and former athletes, music artists, actors and comedians would appear in adverts featuring them in comedic situations, often involving Howard Johnson's food. The campaign was created by Boston-based HRV Advertising, the advertising agency that held the Howard Johnson's Restaurants account at the time, and nearly all the ads have been written or co-written by copywriter Joe Rotzinger.

2000s[]

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, all first responders got a year-long supply of free meals at all locations.

In 2003, Howard Johnson's came under fire for having the most unhealthiest kids menu in America out of any chain restaurant. In response to this Howard Johnson's introduced healthier options on their kids menu called "Fun 'n Healthy" and started charging customers extra for less healthy sides and drinks on the kids menu. After customer backlash, the extra charge for the less healthy sides and drinks on the kids menu was dropped in 2005.

In 2006, following Six Flags' acquisition of Paramount Parks Howard Johnson's became the official ice cream of Six Flags.

On September 3, 2008, all locations of the H.J. Fern's Pub chain closed suddenly with no advance notice to employees and/or customers. A day later, Howard Johnson's Restaurants Inc. issued a notice saying that all locations of the H.J. Fern's Pub chain were to be temporarily closed for a "reformatting" to meet a more family-friendly image. The "reformatting" lasted until January 10, 2009, with locations gradually re-opening as time went on.

2010s[]

In 2014, along with HESS, Howard Johnson's Restaurants Inc. was purchased by Speedway.

2020s[]

In 2020 and 2021, Howard Johnson's launched several virtual restaurant brands. In July 2020, they launched the The Simpsons-themed virtual restaurants Krusty Burger and Homer Simpson's Butter Fried Chicken after signing a licensing deal with 20th Television and Gracie Films. Both had a nationwide launch, with nearly all Howard Johnson's, Red Coach Grill, Down Home Steakhouse and H.J. Fern's Pub locations in the U.S. and Canada fulfilling orders for the two virtual restaurants upon launch. In September 2020, they launched Pieman Bakeries, a dessert-only virtual restaurant, and Disney Eats, another licensing deal-based concept which serves Disney-themed food and some food items sold at Disney theme parks. In April 2021, Howard Johnson's Restaurants launched From the Heart Diner, a '50s diner-style virtual restaurant concept.

In 2021, Speedway sold Howard Johnson's Restaurants and its brands to Tasteful Holdings for $8.5 million.

Corporate overview[]

Howard Johnson's Restaurants[]

Howard Johnson's Restaurants operates in all 50 states and four territories of the United States and all ten provinces and one territory of Canada, and has overseas locations in Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.