Editor’s Note: The following is an adapted excerpt from Yale historian Paul Freedman’s new book, “Ten Restaurants That Changed America.” The closing of the Bangor, Maine, Howard Johnson ...

A few months ago, on a chilly Thursday afternoon in late October, Jon LaRock rubbed his hands together and looked out over the empty parking lot in front of his restaurant. As a blanket of thick ...

Howard Deering Johnson founded the company in 1925 in Quincy. Born in Boston in 1897, Johnson had only finished elementary school when he began to work for his father’s cigar business.

It was an unlikely success given the company’s origins: In 1925, Howard Deering Johnson opened a drugstore in Quincy, Massachusetts. After discovering that his soda fountain was most popular ...

The chain started in 1925 as an ice-cream shop outside Boston by Howard Deering Johnson, who became such a skilled franchiser that at one point a new HoJo restaurant opened every nine days.

with the New England-based restaurant chain predating the ubiquitous Howard Johnson hotels. Howard Deering Johnson started the business in 1925, when he inherited a soda fountain outside Boston.

Howard Deering Johnson started the operation simply in 1925 with a drugstore soda fountain in Quincy, Mass. He increased the butterfat content of the ice cream and did a booming business.

What began as Howard Deering Johnson taking over his father's struggling medicine store and soda fountain in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1925 grew because of his keen understanding of what people ...

Howard Deering Johnson, the chain’s founder, started his food empire in 1925 with an ice-cream shop outside Boston. He was an early pioneer of franchising. At one point in the 1960s, a new ...

Howard Deering Johnson started the business in 1925, when he inherited a soda fountain in Quincy. That evolved into a chain of restaurants featuring comfort food and 28 flavors of ice cream.

with the New England-based restaurant chain predating the ubiquitous Howard Johnson hotels. Howard Deering Johnson started the business in 1925, when he inherited a soda fountain outside Boston.