Howard Johnson's Restaurants
Gone. The last restaurant, in Lake George, New York, was confirmed permanently closed in June 2022 and now serves sushi. The Howard Johnson hotels still blinking along the highway are a separate Wyndham brand — the restaurants, the clams and the 28 flavors are not coming back with them.
Last verified Nov 6, 2026
Orange roofs, fried clams and 28 flavors of double-butterfat ice cream — for a stretch of the century, America's largest restaurant chain. More than a thousand locations in the 1970s dwindled to a single holdout idling by Lake George.
Filed under: Fast Food · the ’70s & earlier
📅 Timeline
- 1925Howard Deering Johnson took over a small drugstore and soda fountain in the Wollaston section of Quincy, Massachusetts; the ice cream counter soon outearned everything else.
- 1935The Orleans, Cape Cod restaurant opened in May under franchise — widely credited as America's first modern restaurant franchise — and 25 franchised outlets dotted eastern Massachusetts by year's end.
- 1975By the mid-1970s, more than 1,000 orange-roofed restaurants plus hundreds of motor lodges made Howard Johnson's America's largest restaurant chain.
- 1979The family sold the company for $630 million, beginning decades of ownership changes that steadily shrank the restaurant side.
- 2016The Bangor, Maine location closed in September, leaving Lake George, New York as the last Howard Johnson's restaurant anywhere.
- 2022The Lake George restaurant, dark since late 2021, was confirmed permanently closed in June; the building is now a sushi restaurant.
❓ People also ask
Are there any Howard Johnson's restaurants left?
No. The last one, in Lake George, New York, was confirmed closed for good in June 2022 after years of sporadic operation. The Howard Johnson hotels you still see are a separate, living Wyndham brand.
What happened to the 28 flavors of ice cream?
They died with the restaurants. Johnson built the 28-flavor line by 1928 on a double-butterfat recipe at his original soda fountain, before a single restaurant existed.
Why did Howard Johnson's restaurants disappear?
The 1979 sale for $630 million began a long chain of owners who valued the lodging business and let the restaurants wither — more than 1,000 locations in the 1970s became one by 2016, and zero in 2022.
🧾 Sources
- CNN Business (via ABC7), Once America's largest restaurant chain, the last Howard Johnson's has closed (2022)
- CBS News Sunday Morning, Visiting the last surviving Howard Johnson's (2015)
- New England Historical Society, Howard Johnson's Goes From One Restaurant to 1000 to Zero (2022)
- Orleans Historical Society, The first modern restaurant franchise in America (2018)
- GlensFalls.com Business Journal, With closing of HoJo's in Maine, Lake George restaurant becomes the last one in chain (2016)