Howard Johnson's opens its first Fort Lauderdale site and a link to the U.S. franchise concept

Shuttered HOJOs on A1A before it was torn down. 

By Jane Feehan

Orange roofs of Howard Johnson restaurants were as much a part of the American tableau of the 1950s and 60s as were wide skirts, rock n’ roll and Russophobia.

Howard Deering Johnson (1897-1972) started out in Massachusetts in 1925 with a soda fountain. Competition was tough but he bumped up sales with his own concoction of high-fat vanilla and chocolate ice cream that quickly became popular; business boomed. 

Within a few years he opened additional stores. Some say he pioneered the franchise concept with the opening of his restaurants in 1935. (Retail histories point to founding father Ben Franklin as a franchising pioneer with his printing shops and Martha Matilda Harper with her hair care stores in 1891 Rochester.)

By the time Johnson made it to Fort Lauderdale in 1950, he owned 252 restaurants throughout the nation, many on turnpikes. He celebrated his 53^rd birthday in Fort Lauderdale Feb. 2, opening his 253^rd restaurant at 317 North Federal Highway. On hand for the occasion was Mayor F.R. Humphries, other city officials, and R.H. Gore, president of the North American Company, builder of the then-new structure which he leased to Howard Johnson of Florida, Inc.

By the 1960s and 1970s, Howard Johnson’s was the largest restaurant chain in the U.S., with more than 1,000 units. He and son, Howard B. Johnson, also opened motels beginning in 1959. Today, Wyndham Worldwide owns Howard Johnson motels and the rights to the name. By 2018 only one restaurant was operating and that was in Lake George, N.Y.

How many HoJo restaurants and motels can you remember in Fort Lauderdale? Was it the ice cream or clam strips that brought you back?  None of the frozen entrees or ice cream products are manufactured today. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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Sources: 

   Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Feb. 3, 1950

   www.hojoland.com

   https://www.franchise.org/blog/the-history-of-modern-franchising

Tags: Howard Johnson restaurants in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, Howard Deering Johnson, Fort Lauderdale restaurant history, Fort Lauderdale hotel history