The orange roofs once felt permanent. For much of the twentieth century, Howard Johnson’s restaurants were as much a part of the American landscape as the highways that connected the coasts. Families planned vacations around them. Travelers recognized the brand instantly, the bright orange roof, the cupola, and the promise of the same fried clams, ice cream, and coffee no matter where you stopped. At its peak in the 1960s and early 1970s, Howard Johnson’s was the largest restaurant chain in the United States, with more than a thousand locations and a cultural presence so strong it felt immovable. Yet its fall would arrive slowly, strangely, and with a kind of ghostly fade, leaving behind abandoned buildings, shuttered dining rooms, and a mystery of how something so dominant vanished so completely.
Howard Deering Johnson began with a single pharmacy in Quincy, Massachusetts, where his unexpectedly popular ice cream, made richer than his competitors by doubling the butterfat, turned his drugstore into a destination. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, Johnson had expanded into restaurants that emphasized consistency and reliability. Travelers could stop at any location and receive the same familiar comfort food, meticulously standardized and tightly controlled. When the interstate system began to unfurl across the country after World War II, Howard Johnson’s was perfectly positioned to thrive. They struck deals with turnpikes, secured prime roadside real estate, and became synonymous with middle-class American travel.
But the first cracks appeared just as the chain was reaching its height. The 1970s brought economic turbulence: fuel shortages, inflation, and a decline in long family road trips. New competitors emerged, McDonald’s, Burger King, and other fast-food brands, offering cheaper, quicker meals, and a modern, youth-oriented image. Howard Johnson’s full-service model suddenly felt old, even burdensome. Diners that once seemed warm began to feel dated compared to the bright, efficient fast-food chains rising around them. The company attempted to adapt, but the speed of change outpaced their ability to respond.
The acquisition by Imperial Group in 1979 marked a turning point. Corporate oversight grew heavier, menu quality slipped, and long-trusted recipes were altered to cut costs. Loyal customers noticed. Franchisees grew frustrated. Many historians of the brand point to this era as the moment when the soul of the chain, its consistency, its quality, its sense of roadside Americana, began to erode. Once parted out, the franchises scattered in different directions. Some maintained standards, others degraded rapidly. What used to feel like one cohesive empire began to look like a patchwork of fading outposts.
The 1980s and 1990s accelerated the unraveling. Hotels were spun off and rebranded. The restaurant division shrank. Iconic locations closed without fanfare. Travelers who had grown up with Howard Johnson’s would exit the interstate expecting an orange roof, only to find an empty parking lot or a different restaurant altogether. By the 2000s, only a handful remained. Their interiors looked frozen in time, blue booths, familiar menus, and staff who remembered the chain’s better years. The brand had slipped away so quietly that many people assumed it had already disappeared long before it actually did.
When the final location, in Lake George, New York, closed its doors, it marked not just the end of a business but the end of a particular era of American travel. Howard Johnson’s represented something larger than fried clams and ice cream. It was an artifact of postwar optimism, a time when families took to the open road and believed in the promise of the interstate, that each exit might bring comfort, consistency, and a warm meal under an orange roof glowing in the dusk. Its decline leaves behind a puzzle of corporate missteps, cultural shifts, and changing tastes, but also a lingering nostalgia. The shells of old Howard Johnson’s buildings still stand in scattered places across the country, silent reminders of a brand that once felt too big, too familiar, and too beloved to ever truly disappear.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Jakle, John, and Keith Sculle. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age.
– New York Times Archives, various reporting on Howard Johnson’s closures.
– Smithsonian Magazine, “The Rise and Fall of Howard Johnson’s.”
– Boston Globe historical features on Howard Deering Johnson.
– Turnpike Authority concession records and franchise agreements.
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
