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'Howard Deering Johnson' (February 2, 1897 in Boston, Massachusetts – June 20, 1972) was the founder of an American chain of restaurants and motels under one company of the same name, Howard Johnson's.

Contents

Businessman

Growth of chain

Personal Life

References

External links

Businessman

Howard Deering Johnson only finished elementary school because he began to work in his father's cigar business. He served during World War I in the American Expeditionary Force. His father died and left him him a business that was in debt. Howard Johnson entered the restaurant industry in order to pay off debts that remained after selling the cigar venture.
In 1925, he bought a small soda shop, the Walker-Barlow drugstore in Quincy, Massachusetts. The store sold three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. Using an old German pushcart operator’s “recipe”, he enhanced the quality of the ice cream by using hand-cranked makers and doubling the butterfat of the product - in essence, creating a "super-premium" ice cream.
Johnson expanded operations by opening a second store in Wollaston, Massachusetts in 1927 and a third store in Natasket Beach, Massachusetts the following year. He also started selling food items such as hamburgers and frankfurters at his original store. In 1929, Johnson opened a second restaurant in Quincy. This store had a broader menu and laid the groundwork for future expansion.
In 1935, Howard Johnson teamed up with a local businessman, Reginald Sprague, and created the first modern restaurant franchise. The idea was new in that day - let an operator use the name, food, supplies, and logo, in exchange for a fee.

Growth of chain

It would be the roadside restaurant, however, that would propel him to fame and fortune. Johnson seemed to have a keen eye for what Americans liked, and was able to combine elements of various styles of roadside dining into one package that would be appealing to the greatest number of people.
From the early days of motoring, establishments sprouted along the roadways to feed travelers, but each of these had some drawback that hindered their growth. There were tea rooms, whose homey atmosphere appealed to women, but in this era it was usually men who were driving the car. There were diners, which men liked, but women were not likely to want to sit on a counter stool in the days before booth service was common. Finally, there were hot dog stands and other casual food stops, often operating out of shacks or other unsavory looking buildings, where the quality of the food was open to question.
For his creation, Johnson borrowed a building type that was well-known and loved throughout New England: the large Colonial home. In the early years, there was some variation in the size and detailing of the buildings, partly because many of them were built by franchisees. As the 1930s came to a close, however, the style became refined and more uniform: a Colonial building sided in clapboards painted white, multi-paned windows, three dormers, and a cupola with a clock mounted on the front. This handsome style fit well in the New England towns where Johnson opened his restaurants, but Johnson added a twist of his own: a brilliant orange roof, guaranteed to catch the eye of the passing motorist. The cupola was also topped off with a weathervane featuring an outline of Simple Simon and the Pieman, a trademark developed for Howard Johnson's by artist John Alcott.
Howard Johnson's opened its 351st restaurant in 1952 and became the world's largest food chain.
As the company entered the 1960s, the company had a successful formula in place, and there were plenty of new Interstate highways being built providing prime locations for Howard Johnson's Restaurants and Motor Lodges for years to come. The company went public, and Howard D. Johnson passed control of the company to his son, Howard B. Johnson. In the mid 1960s, Howard Johnson's was at the top of its game. In 1965, the company's sales exceeded that of McDonald's, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken combined. By 1965, the Howard Johnson name was to be found on 770 restaurants and 265 motor hotels.
The younger Howard Johnson assumed control of a company that had become large in a relatively short time, and lines of supervision were not always clearly drawn. In the early days, Howard D. Johnson would often pay surprise visits to his restaurants to make sure his standards were being kept, but the chain had grown so large that this was no longer possible. Also, most Howard Johnson's restaurants drew their customer base off the highway rather than local repeat business, so this gave some of the less scrupulous operators cover to let the standards slip. But, as more and more travelers experienced mediocre meals in deteriorating surroundings served by indifferent help, ultimately this cost the company.
Johnson's son, Howard B. Johnson, took over the company in 1959. During his retirement, Howard D. Johnson continued to monitor the food preparation and cleanliness of his restaurants. This was a period of fast growth for his company. However, Johnson was very wary of debt. He started the company while in debt and developed the franchise strategy because he did not have cash to expand. The result in later years was a conservative approach to financial management by building up large cash reserves and not spending it on innovation. He was also pre-occupied with cost cutting. ''"Every time I saw Howard Johnson he was always telling me how he was going to cut costs further"'', remarked one competitor.
As more of the Interstate Highway system neared completion and the nation became saturated with orange roofs, the company looked to other restaurant concepts for continued growth, tacitly admitting that maybe the Howard Johnson's restaurant was not all things to all people. Red Coach Grill, an upscale steakhouse similar to the Steak and Ale chain, was often located next to a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge to tap business travelers and their expense accounts, but ultimately the concept did little for the company. More successful was the Ground Round, a casual restaurant chain that survives today under separate ownership.
One restaurant segment that saw phenomenal growth in the 1960s went little noticed by the company: fast food. The company assumed that the traditional Howard Johnson's Restaurant would remain the standard in roadside dining even as McDonald's and their imitators added locations at a rapid pace. Even traditional rival Marriott Corporation, whose Hot Shoppes restaurants competed with Howard Johnson's in some places, entered the fast food segment with its Roy Rogers chain.
When Howard D. Johnson died in 1972, his name was a well-established brand, and the restaurants and motor lodges he left behind enjoyed a healthy business.

Personal Life

His son, Howard B. Johnson, is married to Patricia Bates, daughter of Ted Bates (executive).
Three children: Howard Jr. (married with two children: Howard Jr. and Nash), Marissa (married with three children: Paris, Tyler, and Brittany Brock), and Patricia Crawford (married with two children: Bates and Nolan)

References

★ Brian Miller, ''"Profile of Howard Deering Johnson: The Man Under the Orange Roof"'', Published by the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education, 2810 North Parham, Suite 230, Richmond, Virginia USA 23294.

★ William “Rick” Crandall, Christopher Ziemnowicz, and John A. Parnell, ''"The Growth and Demise of the Howard Johnson’s Restaurant Chain: A Schumpeterian Perspective"'', Published in the Proceedings of the Southern Management Association Meeting, Charleston, SC., November 2005.

External links

★ Howard Johnson at Find-A-Grave