The last Howard Johnson’s restaurant has shut its doors, signaling the end of an era for travelers who remember the brand’s fried clams and 28 flavors of ice cream as a road trip staple.
The Lake George, N.Y., location is closed, and the property is up for lease, listing agent Bill Moon of Exit Realty Empire Associates confirmed. However, Moon said, for the last several years, the restaurant wasn’t operated as a “traditional Howard Johnson’s experience.”
“It was a local lessee that was running a restaurant out of the Howard Johnson’s building,” he said. The building has been listed for lease since December, he said, and it has been vacant since January or February.
Moon said the 7,500-square-foot space is priced at $10 per square foot, and that the owner is open to selling the building as well. “Existing building is currently operating as a restaurant but can be converted into a large showroom, flagship store, or used as is,” the listing for the building at 2143 Route 9 reads.
Founded in Massachusetts by Howard Deering Johnson, the chain known for its iconic orange roofs had around 1,000 restaurants strategically located by turnpikes and highways by the 1970s. 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.”
Howard Johnson’s declined in part because of competition from fast-food restaurants, and its footprint shrank dramatically in
