[HN Gopher] The last Howard Johnson's restaurant closes in Lake ... ___________________________________________________________________ The last Howard Johnson's restaurant closes in Lake George, N.Y. Author : NaOH Score : 57 points Date : 2022-06-03 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com) | jpm_sd wrote: | I really enjoyed Jacques Pepin's autobiography and was surprised | to discover that working at Howard Johnson's was a major, | formative experience in his life. | | https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/apprentice-my | | https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/opinion/howard-johnsons-a... | CharleFKane wrote: | And to kind of tie several things together at once: | | The podcaster Simon Majumdar recently did an interview with | Jacques Pepin. | | https://www.eatmyglobe.com/season-8/jacquespepin | | During that interview, he mentioned that, as a special event, | with Paul Freedman (author of "10 Restaurants that Changed | America", they cooked one dish from each of the 10 restaurants | for about 100 people. | | Some of these dishes were from really high-end restaurants like | Le Pavillon (where Pepin also worked). | | "But the dish that everybody loved was the fried clams from | Howard Johnson's." | dharmon wrote: | I just read this and also really enjoyed it. | | Pepin heaps praise on Howard Johnson (the person), and has no | kind words for his son, whom he blames for the restaurant's | decline. Mainly lack of adaptability as fast food hit the | country, but then also drastically cutting quality in | ingredients. | | Pepin claims that he would take home frozen restaurant food (as | it was shipped to the restaurants), reheat it, and serve it to | his NYC "foodie" friends, including renowned French chefs, | without them being able to tell. I actually believe this since | most of the pre-prepared food were stocks and sauce bases which | freeze just fine, and also take the most time to prepare. | [deleted] | ars wrote: | Sears and K-Mart are working on it: | https://brostocks.com/2021/11/20/how-many-sears-stores-are-l... | and https://brostocks.com/2022/04/28/how-many-kmarts-are-left- | in... | lapetitejort wrote: | Somewhat related, I know of a Woolworth's that has been | untouched since its closing in the 90s in a tourist city | somewhere on the East Coast. I toured it by myself after a | store owner friend gave me a key to the basement. I wanted to | enjoy it more, but the constant dread of getting caught | overwhelmed the fascination of this thirty year old time | capsule. | LeoPanthera wrote: | I guess they will not be able to open the "Howard Johnson's | Earthlight Room" on an orbiting space station as predicted by | 2001: A Space Odyssey, after all. | | https://georgehahn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2001-space... | | (The "Bell System Picturephone" is also looking pretty unlikely.) | [deleted] | mooreds wrote: | Here's a website devoted to Howard Johnsons: | http://www.hojoland.com/ | Doctor_Fegg wrote: | > In his book "Ten Restaurants That Changed America," historian | Paul Freedman credited the company with pioneering "several key | concepts in the American way of dining out: roadside locations, a | family-friendly ambience, franchising, predictability and serving | comfort food long before that term was invented." | | This, incidentally, is a superb book. I greatly enjoyed it and | I'm not even American. | anyfoo wrote: | That honestly sounds like exactly the things that annoy me, | those chain restaurants and franchises with always the same | audience and food. Visiting is equivalent to going to a FedEx: | You know what to expect, but you don't go there for pleasure. | | That's good and expected for fast food (i.e. McDonald's), but | fast food is something you do on the go: Using drive through or | picking up, or when I was younger sitting in only | transitionally with my friends to gulp down the fast food in | the middle of our night out. | | Luckily at least in the cities there are still a wide variety | of individual restaurants, often better than where I'm from, | especially (but not exclusively) if it comes to non-local | cuisine. The chains take up space but they are still easy | enough to ignore. | kube-system wrote: | The popular situation in which someone would go to one of | these restaurants is this: | | It's 1975 in America. You're on a family road trip. It's hot, | you've been driving all day, and you've got two whiny kids in | the back seat. Everyone is getting hangry, and you need | somewhere comfortable to pause. You want somewhere where you | can sit, get something that the kids will eat without fuss, | and maybe an ice cream would be nice. The obvious answer is | Howard Johnson. | | Drive throughs didn't exist at this time, and even if they | did, you wanted to get out of the damn car anyway. | rcurry wrote: | I was one of those whiny kids, lol. Always the high point | of our cross country trips in the old '72 Impala when my | dad would get tired of driving and say "What do you kids | think about hitting a HoJo's?" | anyfoo wrote: | Thanks. As mentioned elsewhere, I did not know that aspect | of "roadside restaurants". It makes sense as a "pit stop" | kind of thing with families, and seems to fill a similar | role to the big gas station+restaurant combinations you | find along the Autobahn for example. | | Another aspect is that if in Europe you've been driving for | 8 hours, you may well have crossed a country border (or | multiple), and everything is very different anyway. | McDonald's again being your best bet if you want anything | really predictable in that case (and you can even order | without speaking the language usually). | kube-system wrote: | The road-trip culture in the US has spawned all kinds of | interesting business models that make little sense out of | context. | | My favorite example is Breezewood Pennsylvania: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breezewood,_Pennsylvania | | It's a "town" that almost nobody lives in. It exists | solely because of a poorly-conceived connection between | two major highways. Millions of people stop to get gas, | use the restroom, or stop at a hotel there just because | they have to stop anyway at two stop lights. | Tostino wrote: | What you are looking for in a restaurant is not the same as | everyone else. There are plenty of people who are more than | happy to have their same comfortable meal over and over, | these places are catering to those folk. Repeat business is | better for profitability than always having to acquire new | customers, and this model encourages that repeat business for | the customers that it fits well with. | anyfoo wrote: | I guess I don't understand why that needs chains. In the | parts of Europe that I am originally from, there are far | less chain restaurants than here. And as I hinted, it's | still pretty common for folks to have "their" restaurant in | the neighborhood and to eat there all the time, same food | or not. Maybe mixing it up some time with another | restaurant, maybe not. | throw7 wrote: | You're right... it doesn't need "chains". "Chinese" | restaurants fill the same needs. I think maybe even | "Mexican" restaurants do to some degree also. | | I'm not familiar with Europe, but in my limited travels, | "doner kebab" shops kind of seem to fill the same niche. | oh_sigh wrote: | HoJos were catering to travelers, not to locals(which is | why they are on the side of highways generally). So the | idea is you're in some new territory on a road trip, and | you see a name you know and trust and know you can go in | there and get a meal that you'll enjoy. Yes, sometimes | exploring unique local food options is what you want to | do. Other times, it isn't. Maybe you just spent 8 hours | driving in the car with 3 kids, and you need to get food | into them that you know they won't reject. Or you're a | business traveler and aren't interested in sightseeing, | and just want to get a quick meal near your hotel. | | I'm sure it happened, but I'd imagine very few customers | lived within a couple miles of a HoJo and would eat there | regularly. | anyfoo wrote: | That's a good explanation, thanks. So it's basically | McDonald's but with more "substantial" food suited to sit | in with families. | | That makes sense to me. Almost no matter where I traveled | in the world, I sometimes wanted to just get some food in | me and move on, say because I was transitioning through a | place or simply did not have the energy for more. As a | then single guy, McDonald's was always a good option for | that: You know what you get and it's quick and easy. | Tostino wrote: | I don't honestly think it's necessary by any means, and | don't personally like them. But they do eek our their | existence through appealing to the "familiar" for their | customers, because no matter where you're at, you know X | will taste like home. | | I don't personally subscribe to that, i'd much rather see | what a new place has to offer, but i'm not everyone. | anyfoo wrote: | Ah, I think I can understand that aspect (even though it | also does not fit me personally). | surge wrote: | Cracker Barrel essentially fills this niche now. | kube-system wrote: | I'd throw Denny's, IHOP, and Applebees into the same | category. | rmason wrote: | When I was growing up Howard Johnson's were everywhere. Their | hotels were in every mid-size town as well. In the mid | seventies there were over 500 hotels and 1000 restaurants. Just | like Sears Roebuck it was classic Americana and you could | easily make the assumption that it would be there forever, but | by the year 2000 it had mostly disappeared. I admit to not | knowing why. | | Their hotels weren't anything remarkable but the restaurants | were special. Perhaps tastes changed and once the restaurants | retreated the hotels followed. | [deleted] | jhap wrote: | I second the book rec, I thought it would be fairly predictable | and lame, but it turned out to be completely awesome. | AlbertCory wrote: | I can't get too nostalgic on this one, sorry. | | But speaking of upstate New York: the fact that you can stay in | Big Pink [1], where Dylan and The Band stayed and / or recorded | -- that would be something. | | [1] https://www.vrbo.com/3970069ha | mbreese wrote: | https://archive.ph/jELUf | chasil wrote: | Howard Johnson's had fried clams, did not know that. | | While I find fried clams repulsive, my secretary loves them, | especially in her home state of New Hampshire. | | I found them at Red Lobster a few years ago, and insisted that | she try them because she complained so much. She admitted they | were quite good, but there were no "bellies" (a particularly | repellent portion of the dish). | | I hope she liked HoJo's while it lasted. | jmclnx wrote: | >Howard Johnson's had fried clam | | They were clam strips from what I remember, and I am with your | secretary. Clam Strips are a waste of calories :) | | But I was rather surprised when friends from Atlanta GA visited | and I took them to a place in New Hampshire, which I am sure | your secretary has bee at many times. They thought Fried Clams | were repellent, which was a big surprise to me. | | The ended up getting scallops, but they did not believe were | real because they were so large. | ghaff wrote: | There are clam strips and fried whole belly clams. The latter | are definitely better but you apparently don't like clams in | general. | | That said, as I get older I find most deep fried things are | better not deep fried so I'll pretty much take steamers | (steamed clams) by preference these days. | Tostino wrote: | Yup, will go for steamed over fried seafood any day of the | week...unless there are good fish and chips around. | nsajko wrote: | > Howard Johnson's had fried clams, did not know that. | | Funnily, I suppose there's many people who know about Howard | Johnson's serving clams, _even though we know almost nothing | else about the chain_. | | This is thanks to Zappa's song/musical story Billy the | Mountain, prominently featuring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan | (the force behind The Turtles) on most memorable performances. | | Excerpt: They left that night, crunchin' | across the mojave desert Their voices echoing through | the canyons of your minds "Ethel, want to get a cuppa | cawfee?" "there's a Howard Johnsons! want to | eat some clams?" The first noteworthy piece of real | estate they destroyed was Edwards Air Force Base And to | this very day, 'wing nuts' and data reduction clerks alike | Speak in reverent whispers about that fateful night when | Test stand number one and the rocket sled itself got LUNCHED! | By a famous mountain-in and his small, wooden wife | fredcy wrote: | Going to the Howard Johnson's (in Oshkosh, Wisconsin) in the late | 60's was a big treat for my family. Their fried clams were exotic | fare. | O__________O wrote: | Property is now listed for the unlikely price of $10... :) | | https://exitrealtyempireassociates.com/listing/nyenyrmls2021... | iod wrote: | Per the article, it's $10 per foot2 of space leased. So I am | guessing that to lease the whole place it would therefore be | 7500ft2 * $10-per-ft2-per-year / 12 months-per-year = | $6250/month . | WorldPeas wrote: | I guess that location they opened in space back in 2001 really | bankrupted them | js2 wrote: | My dad used to take me to one in Miami. For their fried clams and | Butter Crunch ice cream. | | https://losttables.com/hojos/hojos.htm | | The last one closed in 2017 though. Even though a restaurant | remained in the Lake George location, it wasn't operating as | Howard Johnson's, per the article. It's sorta like how Voyager | keeps leaving the solar system, I guess? | tuckerpo wrote: | I visited Lake George at the end of 2021 and the Howard Johnson | restaurant was a tourist attraction, for some reason. Bummer to | see it die. | dpedu wrote: | That's too bad. I have fond memories of my 5th grade math teacher | taking me there many times for ice cream because she used that as | a reward for whoever had the best grades that week, or something | like that. Oh well. | giantg2 wrote: | I imagine that sort of reward would not take place today. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-03 23:00 UTC)