The last Howard Johnson's restaurant closes in Lake George, N.Y.
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/apprentice-my
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/opinion/howard-johnsons-a...
Pépin heaps praise on Howard Johnson (the person), and has no kind words for his son, whom he blames for the restaurant’s decline. Mainly lack of adaptability as fast food hit the country, but then also drastically cutting quality in ingredients.
Pépin claims that he would take home frozen restaurant food (as it was shipped to the restaurants), reheat it, and serve it to his NYC “foodie” friends, including renowned French chefs, without them being able to tell. I actually believe this since most of the pre-prepared food were stocks and sauce bases which freeze just fine, and also take the most time to prepare.
During lock downs I got into french sauces. The mother sauces, specifically the fond brun, are quite time consuming to make. I'm talking 2-3 days worth of time.
I mean, the pay off is amazing. I've had guests literally licking the china. But my lord, is it hard to do.
If anyone out there is looking to really up their cooking game but not also spend days in the kitchen, I recommend this: https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Gourmet-16-Ounce-Packages/d...
It's not as good as home made, but it's ~85% the way there, 90% with filtered tap water (in my experience).
Do be careful with a demi glace though, you do need to get their product for that. Just trying to reduce the water by half for the fond brun and calling it demi glace doesn't taste the same, at least to me.
The podcaster Simon Majumdar recently did an interview with Jacques Pepin.
https://www.eatmyglobe.com/season-8/jacquespepin
During that interview, he mentioned that, as a special event, with Paul Freedman (author of "10 Restaurants that Changed America", they cooked one dish from each of the 10 restaurants for about 100 people.
Some of these dishes were from really high-end restaurants like Le Pavillon (where Pepin also worked).
"But the dish that everybody loved was the fried clams from Howard Johnson’s."
https://georgehahn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2001-space...
(The "Bell System Picturephone" is also looking pretty unlikely.)
Ah, well, the future isn't what it used to be. At least we didn't get nuked yet, a distinct possibility at the time.
The set: Stanley Kubrick Collection (Lolita / Dr. Strangelove / 2001: A Space Odyssey / A Clockwork Orange / Barry Lyndon / The Shining / Full Metal Jacket) https://www.amazon.com/dp/6305440093/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_4XQ9...
It required four (I think?) copper pairs to each handset, one for the audio and three for the video. And it was expensive.
Not a huge surprise it didn't catch on. Mostly I was just joking that it's disappointing there isn't a video payphone in space. ;)
https://losttables.com/hojos/hojos.htm
The last one closed in 2017 though. Even though a restaurant remained in the Lake George location, it wasn't operating as Howard Johnson's, per the article. It's sorta like how Voyager keeps leaving the solar system, I guess?
https://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/051201/story4.shtml
http://www.highwayhost.org/Florida/MiamiArea/CoralGables/cor...
While I find fried clams repulsive, my secretary loves them, especially in her home state of New Hampshire.
I found them at Red Lobster a few years ago, and insisted that she try them because she complained so much. She admitted they were quite good, but there were no "bellies" (a particularly repellent portion of the dish).
I hope she liked HoJo's while it lasted.
That said, as I get older I find most deep fried things are better not deep fried so I'll pretty much take steamers (steamed clams) by preference these days.
Funnily, I suppose there's many people who know about Howard Johnson's serving clams, even though we know almost nothing else about the chain.
This is thanks to Zappa's song/musical story Billy the Mountain, prominently featuring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (the force behind The Turtles) on most memorable performances.
Excerpt:
They left that night, crunchin' across the mojave desert
Their voices echoing through the canyons of your minds
"Ethel, want to get a cuppa cawfee?"
"there's a Howard Johnsons! want to eat some clams?"
The first noteworthy piece of real estate they destroyed was Edwards Air Force Base
And to this very day, 'wing nuts' and data reduction clerks alike
Speak in reverent whispers about that fateful night when
Test stand number one and the rocket sled itself got LUNCHED!
By a famous mountain-in and his small, wooden wifeFrank Zappa is cool but even his most ardent fans have to concede that his songs and lyrics are pretty obscure.
They were clam strips from what I remember, and I am with your secretary. Clam Strips are a waste of calories :)
But I was rather surprised when friends from Atlanta GA visited and I took them to a place in New Hampshire, which I am sure your secretary has bee at many times. They thought Fried Clams were repellent, which was a big surprise to me.
The ended up getting scallops, but they did not believe were real because they were so large.
https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/sl...
https://www.publichealth.com.ng/how-to-identify-fake-scallop...
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/IQF-imitation-breaded...
Note here that the FDA lists skate->scallop substitution.
https://www.fda.gov/food/seafood-guidance-documents-regulato...
Fraud accounts for up to 40% of seafood sales.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/15/revealed...
But do go on believing that Alibaba’s fake food isn’t passed off as the real thing.
My point is that Alibaba is not selling counterfeit scallops. What you wrote did not contradict the comment to which you were responding.
I mean for, you, maybe. But throughout the eastern US, clams in all sort are not an obscure food item. Steamed clams are a common preparation (which is famously referenced in one of thr most memeified Simpsons scenes) and that is served as the whole clam not just the “strip”.
Also HoJos was pretty much responsible for popularizing the strip only variation throughout the US.
https://newengland.com/today/food/main-dishes/fish-seafood/f...
Whole fried clams may not be popular outside of the Northeast, they’re not exactly obscure.
As for HoJo style strips, it’s not like you can’t just get a fucking box in any supermarket freezer aisle. These are a Midwest food more than a New Hampshire food. Your secretary was humoring your “insistence”.
Looking at the other comments, it’s amusing how this post has pretty much drawn out the xenophobic middle American rubes of HN.
Also, if you can you should totally do a Reddit AMA. It's stories like your grandfather's I find interesting.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/374001062181?nma=true&si=uMabXVBJXp...
I guess you might say there were red flags there, but he didn't do anything remotely weird, then or later. He was apparently just wanting to help out a kid who was interested in the same stuff he was. Nowadays I don't think anyone would dare.
Things opened up a bit in the 1970s and 1980s. I think it is a reflection of growing real disposable income, more restaurants and the cheaper chains opening.
But speaking of upstate New York: the fact that you can stay in Big Pink [1], where Dylan and The Band stayed and / or recorded -- that would be something.
My grandparents took me to Washington DC and due to a mix up with the reservations for hotel rooms, the travel agency put us in the Watergate Hotel.
For an about 10 year old, the hotel restaurant at the Watergate was a bit too fancy. Across the street (looking at Google maps - and https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9000541,-77.0557682,3a,68.9y... looks about right), was a Howard Johnsons which was indeed a place where a 10 year old boy could get food without problem. (later edit: yep - that's it - https://www.flickr.com/photos/edge_and_corner_wear/972817199... )
The food that I likely wouldn't have ate (as a picky eater) but my grandmother had me try before she told me what they were was the fried clams.
https://www.thefooddictator.com/howard-johnsons-fried-clams/
I turned out I actually liked them and so had them each time I went there on that trip.
https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2016/09/30/howard-johnso...
An article about that last Howard Johnsons - https://www.eater.com/2017/2/14/14601970/last-howard-johnson...
From that article...
> There are some days, like when a previous Howard Johnson’s owner drives to Lake George just to shake LaRock’s hand and wish him luck, or when a couple arrive from New Jersey just to eat fried clams at a linoleum HoJo’s counter again, when none of that feels important. There are other days, however, when LaRock tries to predict the weather while waiting for tour buses full of French-Canadians, and in those moments, and it feels like he is the captain, first mate, and chief steward of a ship that’s already sunk.
"Howard Johnson Restaurants - Life in America"
https://exitrealtyempireassociates.com/listing/nyenyrmls2021...
This, incidentally, is a superb book. I greatly enjoyed it and I’m not even American.
That's good and expected for fast food (i.e. McDonald's), but fast food is something you do on the go: Using drive through or picking up, or when I was younger sitting in only transitionally with my friends to gulp down the fast food in the middle of our night out.
Luckily at least in the cities there are still a wide variety of individual restaurants, often better than where I'm from, especially (but not exclusively) if it comes to non-local cuisine. The chains take up space but they are still easy enough to ignore.
I don't personally subscribe to that, i'd much rather see what a new place has to offer, but i'm not everyone.
I'm not familiar with Europe, but in my limited travels, "doner kebab" shops kind of seem to fill the same niche.
Whole peanuts, halves, crushed, peanut butter? Mixed in or on top? Egg or no egg. Same with cilantro. How wide of noodles? Etc.
I try not to be picky so just ask for Pad Thai, Thai spicy. Usually good, but definitely not consistent.
A chain like say, Applebees will at least give consistently OK food that tastes about the same across restaurants, IMO.
I noticed the good places slice up fresh chilis and mix them in well. The bad places just dump some red pepper flakes on top at the end.
I'm sure it happened, but I'd imagine very few customers lived within a couple miles of a HoJo and would eat there regularly.
That makes sense to me. Almost no matter where I traveled in the world, I sometimes wanted to just get some food in me and move on, say because I was transitioning through a place or simply did not have the energy for more. As a then single guy, McDonald's was always a good option for that: You know what you get and it's quick and easy.
These days, a lot of chains like these have become less necessary, since Yelp and the like are everywhere. But in pre-digital days you didn’t know which local restaurant was good and which would send you to the clinic.
In alot of out of the way places, they were the restaurant. So they carried a nostalgic appeal even for locals.
In Europe, are there chains that project a sense of cultural cohesion across the nations?
If you find yourself in Manhattan, it’s easy to see. Storefronts with 50k people walking by every day are vacant and the rents are absurd.
Even in my little city, commercial leases are nuts. My wife tried to open a bakery, but the high value spots aren’t available, period unless you enter into a multi unit lease. She ended up doing a bakery trick and flipping the business a few years later.
I assume you meant truck? If so, we're considering the same thing for the same reasons (though not baked goods).
Would love any advice or tips or pros/cons you have to share.
It's 1975 in America. You're on a family road trip. It's hot, you've been driving all day, and you've got two whiny kids in the back seat. Everyone is getting hangry, and you need somewhere comfortable to pause. You want somewhere where you can sit, get something that the kids will eat without fuss, and maybe an ice cream would be nice. The obvious answer is Howard Johnson.
Drive throughs didn't exist at this time, and even if they did, you wanted to get out of the damn car anyway.
Another aspect is that if in Europe you've been driving for 8 hours, you may well have crossed a country border (or multiple), and everything is very different anyway. McDonald's again being your best bet if you want anything really predictable in that case (and you can even order without speaking the language usually).
My favorite example is Breezewood Pennsylvania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breezewood,_Pennsylvania
It's a "town" that almost nobody lives in. It exists solely because of a poorly-conceived connection between two major highways. Millions of people stop to get gasoline, food, use the restroom, or stop at a hotel there just because they have to stop anyway at two stop lights. There's no reason the highways couldn't be directly connected today, but local lawmakers would never allow this because it would destroy their only economic purpose.
As I understand, the state government basically passed a law requiring the turnpike to pay the state government tons of money and now they're sucked dry for cash, and that's why the rates are skyrocketing.
Breezewood is a spot, as you said, where two major highways intersect. As such, millions of drivers pass right through there each year. Building a few gas stations and quick-stop restaurants makes perfect sense. Nobody "lives" at the Eiffel Tower, or at Hartsfield-Jackson, or Wembley Stadium, but restaurants there sell a whole lot of food.
Similarly populated areas with a normal highway interchange don’t look anything like Breezewood.
Much like your examples, these things are typically built proportionally to the surrounding population.
but with electric cars coming, perhaps with a bunch of chargers and an hour to kill these kinds of restaurants make sense again… (though many interstate rest stops now have fast food courts…)
Plane tickets are now much, much cheaper than the cost of gas, tolls, and possible hotel stays.
... a teleportation booth, according to an amusing (or terrifying) SF story from decades ago. You could come out in any other location served by the franchise. Homogenized spacetime mumble handwave ...
Sorry, forgot whodunnit. Maybe Analog magazine around 1990.
When I travel for business and now that my wife and I are traveling more for leisure, we look for an Embassy Suites. We know we are going to get a two room suite, a decent breakfast, a nice happy hour every day and good customer service.
We did the AirBnb once. While it was definitely a decently nice place, we missed the gym, cleaning, restaurant downstairs, easy access by Uber (we were in a gated community), etc.
In fact, my wife and I are planning to be digital nomads for the next couple of years starting later this year. We will definitely be staying in Hilton chains - Embassy, Homewood, or Home2Suites - we will be comfortable and the two room suites give me a place to work.
Not to mention the side benefits of points you can rack up with the cobranded card.
Other brands may be as good, Hilton is just what I’m familiar with.
Their hotels weren't anything remarkable but the restaurants were special. Perhaps tastes changed and once the restaurants retreated the hotels followed.