Howard Johnson's Restaurants & Motor Lodge

[UnderdogDJLSW]

Anyone have any fond memories of these no longer existing places? Every summer we used to stay overnight on the way to visit relatives. Loved having the grilled hot dog or spaghetti as a kid and then black raspberry ice cream with a lemon cookie for dessert. (28 flavors of ice cream was their slogan)

[Mikey]

I used to love the HoJo ... which was a gigantic hotdog

[HardyGirl]

The only exposure I had to Howard Johnson's was the ice-cream and sherbet that was sold at my local grocery store. My fave was banana!

[bobws]

we used to hang out as friends once a month at HOJO's for ice cream.

[thunderbolt]

used to hit them quite often on the Illinois to Florida summer excursions.

[Rallygirl]

The only Howard Johnson's in our area was in the neighboring city. HJ's was in the bad part of town and as kids our big thrill was seeing the scary outfits of the congregating prostitutes as we drove past. When we travelled out of state, "Hooker Johnson's" was avoided at all costs.

[toysrus]

Wow! Great post! I almost forgot about Howard Johnsons! Yeah back in the 70's our parents would take us there pretty often. Loved it as a kid.

[Mikey]

One thing I liked about their motels was they were always clean.

Back in the day Holliday Inn's and Best Western's were a hit and miss, but you could always rely on HJ being clean .... at least the ones I went to.

[jwyblejr]

I understand there's two original restaurants left. One is in Lake George,NY the other one in Bangor,ME. Use to be one in Lake Placid,NY but they said it's for sale.

[AAAAA]

I remember the commericals and the song jingle and the free stuff for kids, at its restaurant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoB7xxrUkPs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZ8Ry9sKTM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoB7xxrUkPs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eab3bKGrJIs

Howard Johnson

[Duncan]

There was one near my house when I was really young, so I have only vague memories. I ate there a few times...and I have the feeling that I had ice cream. Oh, well. My dad assembled a HO scale model of Ho-Jo's that I now pull out at Christmas when we set up trains.

[The Kryptonite Kid]

Oh, Hell Yeah...I used to have a Ho Jo's restaurant close by my home back in the day. I remember loving the food, and running to play video games (Arkanoid in particular) with quarters I grubbed from my Dad. and let's not forget my desire for the many flavored salt water taffy's behind the glass display cases. Good times, good memories...I miss Ya' Ho Jo's

[Mikey]

Here's a little story about the one by me .....

We had a HJ and it was nice .......

Right across the road from it Larry Holmes (former boxing heavyweight champ) built The Commodore Inn.

Larry would always hang around there promoting it and HJ suffered big time.

Eventually HJ went out of business leaving only Commodore.

A short time later Commodore went out of business.

So Larry Holmes basically came in, knocked HJ out and then retired

[UnderdogDJLSW]

So Larry Holmes basically came in, knocked HJ out and then retired

funny.

[VintageMike]

I remember stopping there a few times during childhood trips. Unfortunately onnce the ownership of the restaurants and hotels split, the hotels seemed to always end up with some big hotel chain (currently Wynham) and the restaurants were held together very loosely. There is one hotel/restaurant combo near me that you can easily tell used to be HoJo's. The Hotel is now a La Quinta Inn and the restaurant is now a Hooters.