Howard Johnson , or Howard Johnson by Wyndham , is an American chain of hotels and motels located primarily throughout the United States and Canada. It has also been a chain restaurant for over 90 years and many names are attributed to it alone. Founded by Howard Deering Johnson, it was the largest restaurant chain in the US during the 1960s and 1970s, with more than 1,000 company-owned outlets and combined franchises.
Howard Johnson hotels and motels are now part of Wyndham Worldwide. Howard Johnson's restaurants are franchises separately from the hotel brand that started in 1986, but are greatly reduced in number and all but vanished in the 21st century. Only one Howard Johnson restaurant left: on Lake George, New York. Food and beverage rights to the restaurant are currently owned by Wyndham Worldwide. Frozen supermarket branded food lines, including ice cream, are no longer produced.
Video Howard Johnson's
History
Initial years
In 1925, Howard Deering Johnson borrowed $ 2,000 to buy and operate a small corner pharmacy in Wollaston, an environment in Quincy, Massachusetts. Johnson was surprised to find it easy to pay back the money lent to him, having found the soda fountain he had recently installed had become the busiest part of his drugstore. Wanting to make sure that his shop would stay successful, Johnson decided to make a new ice cream recipe. Some sources say the recipe is based on his mother's ice cream and dessert, while others say the recipe came from local German immigrants, who sell or prescribe ice cream to Johnson. Regardless, new recipes make ice cream more flavorful because of the increased butter fat content. Eventually Johnson came with 28 flavors of ice cream. Johnson was quoted as saying, "I think I have all the flavors in the world.It's '28' (flavored ice cream) to be my trademark."
Throughout the summer of the late 1920s, Johnson opened a concession on a beachfront property along the coast of Massachusetts. Stan sells soft drinks, hot dogs and ice cream. Every stand proved successful. With his success becoming more real every year, Johnson convinces local bankers to lend him enough money to operate a sit-down restaurant. Negotiations were made and, towards the end of the decade, the first Howard Johnson restaurant opened in Quincy. The first Howard Johnson restaurant featured fried clams, baked beans, pot chicken pie, frankfurter, ice cream and soft drinks.
The first Howard Johnson restaurant and Howard Johnson company received a remarkable break in 1929, due to unusual circumstances: Boston mayor Malcolm Nichols banned the planned production of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude, in the city of Boston. Instead of fighting the mayor, the Theater Guild transferred production to Quincy. The five hour drama is presented in two parts with a dinner break. The first Howard Johnson restaurant was near the theater; hundreds of influential Boston residents flocked to the restaurant. Word of mouth, more Americans become familiar with Howard Johnson company.
Expansion in the 1930s and 1940s
Johnson wanted to expand his company, but the destruction of the stock market in 1929 prevented him from doing so. After waiting several years and maintaining his business, Johnson was able to persuade an acquaintance in 1932 to open a second Howard Johnson restaurant in Orleans, Massachusetts. The second restaurant is a franchise and not a corporate property. This is one of the first franchise agreements in America.
By the end of 1936, there were 39 more franchised restaurants, creating a total of 41 Howard Johnson restaurants. In 1939, there were 107 Howard Johnson restaurants along the East East Coast highway, generating revenues of $ 10.5 million. In less than 14 years, Johnson directs a franchise network of more than 10,000 employees with 170 restaurants, serving many 1.5 million people annually.
Unique orange roof icons, cupola and weather vanes on Howard Johnson properties help customers identify restaurants and motels in the chain. The restaurant trademark of Simple Simon and the Pieman logo was created by artist John Alcott in the 1930s.
There were 200 Howard Johnson restaurants when America entered World War II.
In 1944, only 12 Howard Johnson restaurants remained in business. The effects of warfare have paralyzed the company. Johnson successfully defended his business by serving commissary food to war workers and recruiting US Army. When the Pennsylvania Turnpike (1940), and then the Ohio Turnpike, the New Jersey Turnpike and the Connecticut Turnpike were built, Johnson bid and won exclusive rights to serve the driver at the service station via the toll road system.
In the process of recovering from this loss, in 1947 the company of Howard Johnson began construction of 200 new restaurants throughout Southeast and Midwest America. In 1951, Howard Johnson's sales reached $ 115 million.
Entering the hotel business
In 1954, there were 400 Howard Johnson restaurants in 32 states, about 10% of which were very profitable restaurants owned by the company; the rest is a franchise. This is one of the first national restaurant chains.
While many places sell "fried shells", they are intact, which is not universally accepted by the American eating public. Howard Johnson popularized Cronron Brothers Clam Company's fried clams: the "legs" of hard-shell sea shells. They became popular to be eaten this way around the country.
In 1954, the company opened the first Howard Johnson motor lodge in Savannah, Georgia. The company employs architects Rufus Nims and Karl Koch to oversee the design of rooms and cottage gates. Nims previously worked with the company, designing restaurants. The restaurant's trademark, Simple Simon and Pieman, now join the lantern character in the marketing of his company. According to cultural historians, the chain becomes synonymous with travel between motorists and American travelers partly because of Johnson's ubiquitous outdoor advertising.
In 1959, Howard Deering Johnson, who had founded and managed the company since 1925, handed over control to his son, then 26-year-old Howard Brennan Johnson. The older Johnson observed his son who fled to death in 1972 at the age of 75.
The Howard Johnson Company became a public company in 1961; there are 605 restaurants, 265 companies and 340 franchises, and 88 Howard Johnson motorcycle franchises in 32 states and the Bahamas.
In 1961, Johnson hired New York cooks Pierre Franey and Jacques PÃÆ' Â © pin to oversee the development of food at the company's lead commissioner in Brockton, Massachusetts. Franey and PÃÆ' Â © pins develop recipes for corporate signature dishes that can be frozen and shipped throughout the country, guaranteeing consistent products.
Segregation and desegregation
While the decision of landmark Brown's decision v. Board of Education by the United States Supreme Court in 1954 override segregation in public schools, the separation and maintenance of special white public facilities continues in other domains, including the Howard Johnson chain. The segregation at the Howard Johnson restaurant even provoked an international crisis in 1957, when the Howard Johnson restaurant in Dover, Delaware refused service to Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, Ghana's finance minister, encouraging public apology from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Race Equality Congress, or INTI, plays an important role in organizing protests and sit-ins at Howard Johnson locations in several states.
The city of Durham, North Carolina, became very important as the focus for action against restaurants and hotels apart, including Howard Johnson. On August 12, 1962, lawyer and civil rights activist Floyd McKissick started the first of numerous demonstrations and demonstrations against separate establishments in Durham, including the Howard Johnson restaurant on Chapel Hill Boulevard, culminating in protests on 18-20 May 1963 which resulted in mass arrests. as well as the restoration of relations with the city government. Future senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, while a student at the University of Chicago in 1962, helped set up a Howard Johnson location picket in Cicero, Illinois, during his time as a student activist for INTI.
New and changed public chains
In the 1930s, H.D. Johnson purchased the Wayland Red Coach Grill and then used it as a model for a new, high-end restaurant chain concept called Red Coach Grills . While they retained some successes, they were not profitable enough and eventually 15 Red Coach Grills was last sold in 1983 to a corporate executive who closed it. In 1969, Johnson once again tried the concept of a new restaurant, Ground Round . It proved successful. Even though it was not a Howard Johnson restaurant, the chain of Ground Round restaurants belonged to the company and -franchised, thereby increasing Howard Johnson's corporate profits.
In 1975, the Howard Johnson company had more than 1,000 restaurants and over 500 motorhouses in 42 states and Canada. The company peaked that year, but the late 1970s will mark the beginning of the end for the Howard Johnson company. Due to the 1974 oil embargo, Howard Johnson's restaurants and cottages, which retain 85% of the revenue from travelers, lost profits when Americans were unable to drive long trips or frequent holidays. Also, the company's model of ready-to-use food with high quality ingredients in the traditional dining room is expensive when compared to innovations introduced by fast food outlets such as McDonald's, which designs products and restaurants to attract families with younger children. One of the big mistakes the chain made was to remove the cola brand name and replace it with Hojo Cola. It drives families with teenagers who refuse this inferior cola with their dinner.
The company also suffered two famous incidents on a property in the Central Business District of New Orleans within 18 months of each other. The first was a fire in July 1971, set by two angry guests who had been kicked out of the hotel, killing six people. The second, in January 1973, was a terrible all-day siege. Former Black Panther Mark Essex used the hotel roof as a sniper's position, killing three police officers, general manager and assistant general manager of the hotel, and a husband and wife from Virginia, who was on a belated honeymoon. He also injured police, firefighters and civilians. Then, in Jericho, New York, on November 8, 1974, singer actress Connie Francis was raped at the Howard Johnson Lodge Jericho Turnpike Lodge. He sued the motel chain for their restraints in security and won a $ 2.5 million valuation, one of the greatest assessments in history at the time, leading to reforms in the hotel's security. The rapist was never found.
H. B. Johnson sought to streamline company operations and cut costs, such as providing cheaper food and fewer employees. This strategy did not work, as customers compared the new era of Howard Johnson restaurants and motorcycles to less profitable services they previously knew. In a further effort to make the company more successful and profitable, Johnson created other concepts, such as HoJos Campgrounds and 3 Penny Inns for lodging, and Deli Baker Ice Cream Maker, and Chatt for restaurants. All these concepts fail, leading to corporate destruction.
In the late 1990s, Candy Factory and Howard Johnson Executive Offices in Wollaston were bought and renovated by the East Nazarene University to form the Adams Executive Center.
Ownership change
In 1979, Johnson received an acquisition bid of more than $ 630 million from Imperial Group PLC London, England. Imperial acquired 1,040 restaurants (75% owned by the company/25% franchise) and 520 motor cottages (75% franchise/25% owned by the company). In 1981, Imperial recruited G. Michael Hostage, then CEO of Continental Baking Company and former executive vice president of Marriott Corporation, to replace Johnson as CEO. However, after four years, and despite any real progress in the turnaround, Imperial turned around and decided to sell the company instead. After refusing to entertain Hostage's proposal to lead a leveraged purchase, Imperial hired Goldman Sachs who, with the help of Hostage, sold the company to Marriott in 1986. In a concurrent transaction, Marriott sold Howard Johnson motor lodge and trademark business to Prime Motor Inns, a New Jersey company.
Marriott is interested in a restaurant owned by a company not as a survival, but for its real estate. Marriott already has Big Boy Restaurants and Roy Rogers Restaurants; in 1982, acquired Host International, which has operated a number of road stops. Many established Howard Johnson sites are on major highway locations that can be profitable converted into Big Boys or fast-food banners. When Marriott quickly destroyed a restaurant-owned company or converted it into Bob's Big Boy's restaurant network, the number of Howard Johnson restaurants left around 1985 has been sharply reduced; only franchised restaurants remain untouched.
Marriott left all motor cottages owned by companies and franchises that have not been touched because the deal asked them to be sold a year later (in 1986) to Prime Motors Inns, an existing franchise with 63 motels.
Divestment of cottage
Prime Motors Inns continued to preserve the lodge, as did Marriott, until the hotel and the weak real estate market caused it to sell its assets and ceased operations in 1990. Those involved with the company owned and united motor lodges united and formed the Howard Johnson Acquisition Corporation. They manage to get all the right to operate and maintain the company's owned and franchised franchises. With these rights retained, they changed their name to "Howard Johnson International Incorporated," which became a subsidiary of "Hospitality Franchise Systems Incorporated," which eventually merged with other companies to form Cendant. In 2006, Cendant broke away into Wyndham Worldwide and three other companies.
Wyndham operates the Howard Johnson brand under many "levels" based on price, facility level, and services offered. Under Cendant/Wyndham, the chain becomes a parking lot for franchise conversions, of which there are independent motels that have been renovated and added to the chain to give them access to nationally recognized names and central reservation infrastructure. Since this property was originally not made as a Howard Johnson site, they do not have typical architecture and some have no restaurant at all.
Howard Johnson Express Inns, Howard Johnson Inns, Howard Johnson Hotels and Howard Johnson Plaza Hotels range from motels with limited services to full service properties with a concierge and business center on site. Howard Johnson began offering "Naik" N 'Dine "continental breakfasts in several economically limited service locations.This network plans to remove some price levels by 2015.
Divestment of restaurant brands
While belonging to the Howard Johnson company and franchise motor franchise has stood the test of time since it was sold by Howard Johnson Company in 1979, the restaurant has not. Since Marriott eliminated all company-owned restaurants, franchised restaurant owners feared elimination and joined together in 1986 and created "Franchise Associates Incorporated" or (FAI). In 1986, Marriott gave FAI the right to operate and maintain the Howard Johnson restaurant. When Cendant acquired Howard Johnson motorbike, they offered to work with FAI to ensure the expansion of the restaurant chain.
In early 1987, the head of FAI George Carter admitted that "We have a concept, but it needs to be modernized, internally and externally." Howard Johnson is allowed to get tired and stale.We have to get rid of plastic pictures... Anything can be saved if a lot of time and money and effort put in. And Howard Johnson needs all the same things. "Efforts were made to change 25% of the menu and make new signs, but this effort proved inadequate because long neglected chains continue to lose ground for fast-food market operations bulk.
While the Howard Johnson chain is maintained, the FAI does not have enough money to expand to a new location or change brands. With the exception of a Howard Johnson ice cream parlor in Puerto Rico, the FAI never opened a new restaurant or expanded the chain. A restaurant in Canton, Massachusetts was being renovated as a prototype for a new era of Howard Johnson restaurants, but the concept failed, and after less than a decade of operation, the prototype restaurant closed in 2000.
2000s
In 2005, there were fewer than eight restaurants alive. Combined from the absence of vision, no re-investment of capital, aging restaurants, stale menus, lack of marketing or new ideas, and competition from other chains have taken over; restaurant closes their doors. FAI ceased operations in 2005, the same year as Springfield, Vermont, and New York City restaurants last in a closed chain.
Cendant acquired the right to operate and maintain the remaining Howard Johnson restaurant. In 2006, Cendant sold it to La Mancha Group LLC, which has proposed an aggressive expansion of restaurant chains that never materialized. After the Waterbury restaurant Connecticut became The Brass House Restaurant in April 2007, only three locations remained. Cendant was divided into four small companies in 2006; her hotel group becomes Wyndham Worldwide while the other pieces are separated separately to become the Avis Budget Group, Realogy, Travelport, and Affinion Group.
A Howard Johnson frozen food line disappeared from a grocery store after Fairfield Farms. The kitchen closed the Brockton, Massachusetts plant in 2006 and the American Kitchen in Atlanta, Georgia closed in May 2008.
2010s
In spring 2012, one of three original Howard Johnson restaurants is closed, in Lake George, and listed for sale. Personality television, chef, and writer, Rachael Ray had worked there when living in Lake George as a teenager. In 2013 only two original restaurants remain open, but Bangor (hotels and restaurants) no longer have a distinctive orange roof. While the highest level in the hotel franchise (HoJo Hotel Plaza) does not include restaurants, there is no requirement that the menu, format or branding of this Howard Johnson restaurant chain imitate.
With La Mancha Group LLC no longer active, Wyndham Hotel Group now has the rights to the HoJo food business as well as the Howard Johnson hotel chain. In 2013, Wyndham proposes a Howard Johnson Brand Reinvigoration that will bring the optional ice cream back to the hotel, adopt a new logo, eliminate multiple levels of branding and deliver facelift properties and redesign as a lower-middle chain starting in 2015.
In August 2014, the Lake George restaurant regained the name of Howard Johnson when the lease was transferred from its original owner, DeSantis Enterprises, to John Larock. The restaurant reopened on 10 January 2015, briefly bringing the number of locations back up to three. On March 31, 2015, Lake Placid, N.Y., Howard Johnson was closed, leaving only two locations remaining. Then in September 2016, the Bangor restaurant closes, leaving Lake George restaurant, the last remaining location of the original 1,000-plus.
Last remaining restaurant
The sign of the restaurant in Lake George Howard Johnson states: "Last One Standing", but in January 2017 the land package was sold, questioning his future. Furthermore, when on October 12, 2017, John Larock was arrested, charged and jailed for alleged sexual harassment involving 15 female employees, and still facing trial. With little or no staff, and no opening hours, the restaurant runs on a very sporadic schedule (often closed all day), making most assume it's permanently closed. Despite maintaining the original building and trademarked name, its authenticity as a true Howard Johnson restaurant has been questioned due to its different menu and its negative reviews.
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In popular culture
The 2001 film: A Space Odyssey (1968) was "one of the first to bring 'product placements' to companies" such as Howard Johnson, whose logo appears on space stations. The chain's lamplighter was also updated to "Earth's Light Room" at the space station, the Howard Johnson room for passengers taking the shuttle of the moon. In a scene where Russian scientists share a drink with Dr. Floyd, it appears that the restaurant chain serving the space station is Howard Johnson's. The chain featured an 2001 tie in the children's menu.
Most episodes of season 5, "Far Away Places", involve Don and Megan Draper's trip to Howard Johnson's Restaurant and Motor Lodge in Plattsburgh, New York. However, the actual exterior was shot at Baldwin Park, California. In response, Howard Johnson launched a promotion that refers to appearances, to include letters addressed to Don Draper characters in the letterhead style used in that era.
In the 1955 best film Academy Award Marty Ernest Borgnine (winner of best actor in the movie) tries to date a girl and recalls their last encounter where they had burgers and milkshakes at Howard Johnson.
In the movie Blazing Saddles, a joke was made to recreate the town of Rock Ridge "up to the orange roof in Howard Johnson's outhouse" and the "1 flavor" signboard. The character named Howard Johnson is played by John Hillerman.
References
Further reading
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Carayannis, Elias G.; Ziemnowicz, Christopher (2007). "Howard Johnson's Chain Restaurant Case: The Beginnings of Schumpeter's Creative Entrepreneur and 'No Innovation' Ends." Rediscover Schumpeter . Palgrave Mcmillan. ISBN: 978-1-4039-4241-8. - Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell (13 August 2013). The History of Howard Johnson: How the Fountain of Massachusetts Soda Became an American Icon . The History Press. ISBN: 9781609494285.
External links
- Official website
- America's Landmark - Under the Orange Roof HoJo website with guides for existing restaurant locations, history of used locations, etc.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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