A History of Howard Johnson's: How a Massachusetts Soda Fountain Became an American Icon (American Palate)
Anthony Mitchell Sammarco
Language: English
Pages: 160
ISBN: 1609494288
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Howard Johnson created an orange-roofed empire of ice cream stands and restaurants that stretched from Maine to Florida and all the way to the West Coast. Popularly known as the Father of the Franchise Industry," Johnson delivered good food and prices that brought appreciative customers back for more. The attractive white Colonial Revival restaurants, with eye-catching porcelain tile roofs, illuminated cupolas and sea blue shutters, were described in "Reader's Digest" in 1949 as the epitome of "eating places that look like New England town meeting houses dressed up for Sunday." Boston historian and author Anthony M. Sammarco recounts how Howard Johnson introduced twenty-eight flavors of ice cream, the "Tendersweet" clam strips, grilled frankforts and a menu of delicious and traditional foods that families eagerly enjoyed when they traveled."
dairy farm behind it that had been established in 1897 by Fred F. Field, a wealthy shoe manufacturer in Brockton, Massachusetts. The ice cream and dairy products were produced from the prized Holstein cow herds’ milk for the ice cream stands from Grade A milk. Most interestingly, they were offered in twenty-eight flavors and were said to be delicious, premium ice cream. Within five years of opening in 1928, there were almost fifty roadside stores that, in addition to ice cream, sold milk, butter
that advertised his ice cream and food products. His obvious success in opening restaurants, which were either own outright or as franchises, over almost two decades ensured that when he opened on December 3, 1953 the first combined Howard Johnson’s restaurant and motor lodge on Route 17 in Savannah, Georgia, the company took on a new aspect with not just delicious foods and ice cream but a comfortable place to stay. W.W. Saunders was the first Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge operator, and W.D.
for final preparation, ensuring consistent quality throughout the chain,” noted Johnson’s New York Times obituary. Although it was said that 90 percent of the restaurants and ice cream stands closed directly due to gas rationing, Howard Johnson was able to survive these business reversals by cementing contacts that supplied prepared foods for government workers in large industrial plants, as well as for universities training student officers. The first restaurant franchise offered by Howard
Brennan Johnson, assumed the presidency. Since 1925, when he served his first customers in Wollaston, Johnson had become one of the most successful and well-known businessmen in the United States. One wonders if he could have realized how influential his restaurants would be on the public’s appreciation of his traditional New England fare and twenty-eight flavors of ice cream. In 1979, the Imperial Group Limited bought the Howard Johnson’s restaurant chain. Known as a highly successful British
magazine, September 1940. Friedrich, Otto. “Essay: Reflections on 28 Flavors.” Time, May 1, 1989. From Maine to Florida with Howard Johnson’s. N.p.: Howard D. Johnson Company, 1939. Liebs, Chester. Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture. Boston: Little Brown, 1885. Miller, Brian. “Howard Deering Johnson: The Man Under the Orange Roof.” International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education 17, no. 4 (n.d.). Richmond, Virginia. Milton, Massachusetts Public