It all started when Howard Deering Johnson, who grew up in the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, bought a drug store and started selling homemade ice cream. His dessert became so popular that he then opened an ice cream stand on Wollaston Beach, where legend has it he was sold up to 14,000 cones in a single day. In 1929, the first Howard Johnson’s restaurant opened in Quincy Square.
Fast forward to 2022, and what was the largest restaurant chain in the United States with more than 1,000 locations in the 1960s and 1970s is now closing the doors on its last remaining location. Corresponding Esserthe 70-year-old facility in the tourist-heavy village of Lake George, New York, did not open its doors over Memorial Day weekend and appears to have been closed since March.
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The popular restaurant chain began a downturn in the late 1970s. The company was first sold in 1979 to the Imperial Group, one of the UK’s largest companies at the time, for US$630 million. Six years later, Imperial sold Howard Johnson’s “Competing Restaurant Empire” Marriott for $314 million. Thereafter, Howard Johnson locations began to disappear, and by the turn of the century there were fewer than a dozen Howard Johnson restaurants still standing.
The Lake George site lease is complete listed for just $10 and is described as a “rare business opportunity to lease prime property in the heart of Lake George.”
Would you like to reminisce? Look for a group called HoJoLand on Facebook. Its description: “A group for fans of HoJoLand.com, a website dedicated to an American icon, Howard Johnson’s Restaurants and Ice Cream Shops. Long live the Orange Roof!”
The most recent post in this group reads, “Lake George is officially dead. Removed plastic tables and chairs. All memorabilia removed. Cobwebs on the door.”
Then come nostalgic comments like “I had several great meals there on my honeymoon in 1963” and “Summer of 1983. Nothing but happy memories for me and Howard Johnson.”
