Howard Johnson's was once America's biggest restaurant chain. It had over 1,000 orange-roofed diners selling 28 flavors of ice cream and fried clams. In the 1960s it was bigger than McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC. The chain shrank for decades. Only one restaurant was left, in Lake George, New York. That last Howard Johnson's closed in 2022. Today there are zero left in America.
America's Biggest Restaurant Chain Now Has Zero Locations
A drugstore soda fountain in Massachusetts once grew into a restaurant empire so big it dwarfed McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC. Today Howard Johnson's does not have a single restaurant left anywhere in the world.
From a Soda Fountain to a National Empire
Howard Deering Johnson borrowed $2,000 in 1925 to buy a small drugstore in Wollaston, Massachusetts. Its soda fountain became so popular that he perfected his own 28 flavors of ice cream and opened his first full restaurant in 1935. He topped it with a bright orange roof and turquoise cupola, a color scheme picked specifically to catch drivers' eyes from the highway. The chain also became famous for its fried clam strips, made from a recipe it licensed from the Soffron Brothers of Massachusetts.
Bigger Than McDonald's
By the mid 1960s, Howard Johnson's had grown into America's largest restaurant chain, with hundreds of restaurants and motor lodges stretching from Maine to California. In 1965 alone, the company served an estimated 350 million meals to 8 million travelers. It was America's largest restaurant chain at a time when McDonald's, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken were all still small, regional operations. By the late 1970s, the orange roofs numbered more than 1,000 across the country.
The Long Decline
Fast food chains beat Howard Johnson's on speed and price, and the sit-down model that had built the empire became its biggest weakness. Marriott bought the company in 1985 and began selling off restaurants to franchisees and competitors. By the mid 1990s, fewer than 100 locations remained. The orange roofs kept disappearing one by one until only three were left: in Lake George, New York; Lake Placid, New York; and Bangor, Maine. The Lake Placid restaurant closed in 2015, and Bangor followed in 2016, leaving Lake George as the very last Howard Johnson's on the planet.
The Last Orange Roof
The Lake George restaurant had stood on Canada Street for almost 70 years. Celebrity chef Rachael Ray scooped ice cream there as a teenager, back when her mother managed the restaurant. The final Howard Johnson's did not reopen for the 2022 season and closed for good that March. The building was later sold to become a second location for a local sushi restaurant, Sushi Wa. A chain that once fed millions of Americans every year, and once outgrew every name in fast food, now has zero restaurants left anywhere on Earth.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Howard Johnson's restaurants were there at their peak?
Was Howard Johnson's really bigger than McDonald's?
When did the last Howard Johnson's restaurant close?
Why did Howard Johnson's go out of business?
What happened to the Howard Johnson's building in Lake George?
Verified Fact
This fact has been reviewed and verified against original sources.
Source: Boston.comShow verification details
Audited 2026-07-02. Sources checked: Boston.com (2022-06-02, primary, directly fetched - confirms Mar 2022 closure, ~1,000 peak orange roofs, Lake Placid 2015/Bangor 2016 prior closures), Wikipedia (peak ~1,000 restaurants + 500 motor lodges by 1975, Lake George closure Mar 2022, Rachael Ray worked there as teenager), PBS NewsHour (deep-dive history, 1,040 restaurants mid-1979, standardization/28 flavors), American Business History Center (largest restaurant org by mid-1960s; over 1,000 by 1979), Food Republic (28 flavors, orange roof - both directly fetched and confirmed), dailygazette.com/wgna.com/news10.com/cbs6albany (Rachael Ray scooped ice cream at her mother-managed Lake George location as a teen; building resold to become second Sushi Wa location - independently corroborated across 4 outlets). CITATION FIDELITY CORRECTION: the creator's load-bearing hook - "in 1965 Howard Johnson's sales exceeded McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC COMBINED" - was sourced only to sometimes-interesting.com and Andvari Substack, NEITHER of which cites a source, and the two phrasings differ (one says "1965", the other vaguely "even in the 1960s"). Checked 7 independent, more rigorous sources that cover this exact history in depth (Wikipedia, PBS NewsHour, American Business History Center, New England Historical Society, Commonplace Fun Facts, Food Republic, Boston.com/source_url itself) - NONE contain this three-way combined-sales comparison. This is a circular/uncited claim pattern (two blogs repeating an unsourced figure), not independent corroboration, and source_url does not support it. REFRAMED rather than dropped: replaced the unsourceable "sales exceeded X+Y+Z combined" precision with the well-corroborated, still-true "bigger than McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC" / "America's largest restaurant chain" (mid-1960s) claim, confirmed independently by ABHC, PBS, and Wikipedia (McDonald's did not catch up until ~1972). Corrected in text, social_text, social_caption, article body (2 sentences), and FAQ #2 (also retitled the question). This also fixes the money-as-payoff drift flagged at brief: the hook now leans on physical SCALE (chain size) rather than an invented revenue statistic, keeping the payoff on the 1,000->1->0 extinction arc. SECONDARY FIX: FAQ #1 originally conflated "late 1970s" peak restaurant count with "largest restaurant chain in the country" - by the late 1970s McDonald's had already overtaken HoJo's (the two sources agree McDonald's caught up ~1972). Corrected to separate the peak-COUNT claim (late 1970s, most locations ever) from the LARGEST-chain claim (mid-1960s, true at that time only). Also fixed "1,000 restaurants and motor lodges" (read as one combined figure) to "1,000 restaurants plus roughly 500 motor lodges" per Wikipedia. Numeric coherence: over-1,000 restaurant count is now consistent across text/social_text/article/FAQ. No dollar figures remain in social fields (money-as-payoff risk removed with the sales-comparison reframe). Engine/nov/pf: engine=2 retained (brand collapse IS the story; real orange-roof photos exist per image-curator handoff) with a caveat appended to engine_note about audience-age skew - not a hard downgrade, flagging for image-curator/social-manager awareness. nov=2 and pf=2 are reasonable: full 1,000->1->0 extinction angle is fresh, and LOC Margolies-archive orange-roof photos are real and available. Reversed-agency check: none found (Rachael Ray scooped ice cream FOR the restaurant as an employee, not the other way around - correctly stated). Discrepancies found and corrected: 1 (the 1965 combined-sales hook, see above). All other claims independently confirmed.