[Lee Stewart]

The restaurant was founded by Howard Deering Johnson in 1925; in the 1950s, the company expanded operations by opening hotels, then known as Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges, which were often located next to restaurants. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it was the largest restaurant chain in the U.S., with more than 1,000 combined company-owned and franchised outlets.

Howard Johnson's restaurants were franchised separately from the hotel brand beginning in 1986, but in the years that followed, severely dwindled in number until eventually disappearing altogether. The last restaurant, in Lake George, New York, closed in 2022.