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Comment by anyfoo | Hacker News Reader

That honestly sounds like exactly the things that annoy me, those chain restaurants and franchises with always the same audience and food. Visiting is equivalent to going to a FedEx: You know what to expect, but you don't go there for pleasure.

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.

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The popular situation in which someone would go to one of these restaurants is this:

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.

Thanks. As mentioned elsewhere, I did not know that aspect of "roadside restaurants". It makes sense as a "pit stop" kind of thing with families, and seems to fill a similar role to the big gas station+restaurant combinations you find along the Autobahn for example.

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).

The road-trip culture in the US has spawned all kinds of interesting business models that make little sense out of context.

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.

If you've never been to Little America, you haven't lived.

https://wyoming.littleamerica.com

That said, as someone who passes through Breezewood regularly due to living relatively close by, it's been looking increasingly decrepit, well before COVID. A number of the businesses shown in the photo on Wikipedia are shuttered. I expect it's because smartphone apps make it easier to check if there's a restaurant of interest at a more logical stopping point.

That, and now, the PA turnpike is the most expensive toll road in the world.

Is it? As someone who noticed how tolls soared since the inception of the private-public partnership in lieu of Pennsylvania running it, I'm not surprised given the repeated toll increases... just hoped it wasn't the worst.

It's currently $100.20 to drive OH to NJ across the turnpike without EZ-Pass.

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 has fascinated me for decades. I have such fond memories of the "half hour of freedom and fast food" on road trips as a kid. It's like a living reminder to just stop for no reason some times and enjoy the plainest things. One day before I die I'm going to spend a whole day there just because.

> make little sense out of context

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.

The amount of stuff built in Breezewood is disproportionate compared to a typical highway exit because it is one of the few pieces of uncontrolled highway in the interstate system.

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.

You can drive for 8 hours in a single state in the US.

I was one of those whiny kids, lol. Always the high point of our cross country trips in the old ‘72 Impala when my dad would get tired of driving and say “What do you kids think about hitting a HoJo’s?”

Yes you nailed it. I was one of those kids in the back seat, and I loved Howard Johnson. That type of family road trip culture is much reduced now.

I think you are correct, seems like it was replaced by drive through sand fast food.

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…)

The other thing that has changed since that time period is airline deregulation.

Plane tickets are now much, much cheaper than the cost of gas, tolls, and possible hotel stays.

I second this. We only ever ate at HoJos on road trips, but the long wait for food is what I remember most. 8 hours in the car followed by an hours wait for food. I guess the consistency of the menu is what kept us coming back. Fast food is what doomed them in my mind.

What you are looking for in a restaurant is not the same as everyone else. There are plenty of people who are more than happy to have their same comfortable meal over and over, these places are catering to those folk. Repeat business is better for profitability than always having to acquire new customers, and this model encourages that repeat business for the customers that it fits well with.

I guess I don't understand why that needs chains. In the parts of Europe that I am originally from, there are far less chain restaurants than here. And as I hinted, it's still pretty common for folks to have "their" restaurant in the neighborhood and to eat there all the time, same food or not. Maybe mixing it up some time with another restaurant, maybe not.

I don't honestly think it's necessary by any means, and don't personally like them. But they do eek our their existence through appealing to the "familiar" for their customers, because no matter where you're at, you know X will taste like home.

I don't personally subscribe to that, i'd much rather see what a new place has to offer, but i'm not everyone.

Ah, I think I can understand that aspect (even though it also does not fit me personally).

You're right... it doesn't need "chains". "Chinese" restaurants fill the same needs. I think maybe even "Mexican" restaurants do to some degree also.

I'm not familiar with Europe, but in my limited travels, "doner kebab" shops kind of seem to fill the same niche.

Pho. I know exactly what to expect and what I want to order walking into any Pho restaurant in the country and they're all owned and operated by different people.

Maybe not. Many Asian restaurants use unique, exclusive suppliers. I don’t know about Pho places, but many neighborhood Chinese restaurants are really outposts of a fully vertically integrated enterprise. Even vegetables come from specific farms in Central America and have a distinct supply chain.

On the other hand, as a Thai food lover, I can honestly say I've never had Pad Thai that either tasted the same or was even prepared the same between restaurants.

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 once got a Pad Thai with crushed cashews and a tomato based sauce. It tasted like blasphemy.

Ugh, that sounds awful. I absolutely hate tomato based. If it's red, it had better be from stirring in too much chili oil!

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.

HoJos were catering to travelers, not to locals(which is why they are on the side of highways generally). So the idea is you're in some new territory on a road trip, and you see a name you know and trust and know you can go in there and get a meal that you'll enjoy. Yes, sometimes exploring unique local food options is what you want to do. Other times, it isn't. Maybe you just spent 8 hours driving in the car with 3 kids, and you need to get food into them that you know they won't reject. Or you're a business traveler and aren't interested in sightseeing, and just want to get a quick meal near your hotel.

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's a good explanation, thanks. So it's basically McDonald's but with more "substantial" food suited to sit in with families.

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.

Right.

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.

HoJos were based on the famous “Harvey Houses” of Santa Fe railroad fame. They were sort of like a mix of Dennys and a Waffle House.

In alot of out of the way places, they were the restaurant. So they carried a nostalgic appeal even for locals.

This is an interesting point. Perhaps chains give a sense of cultural cohesion across the many states, in a geography that encourages a vision of a culture that spans the states.

In Europe, are there chains that project a sense of cultural cohesion across the nations?

The financial model is different in Europe. Real estate interest have wired that tax code in the US to the point that it’s often cheaper to leave a building vacant and get paid by the government re tax benefits than to rent it.

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.

> doing a bakery trick

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.

That’s exactly what I want - to know what I’m going to get.

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.

When I grew up McDonald's was something for birthday parties or special occasions not really drive through, you went there with the goal to eat :)

Yeah. McDonald's didn't have drive-thrus when I was a kid. My mom would take me there once or twice a year and it was always a highlight. I would always get a happy meal with an orange drink. I loved their orange drink.

> those chain restaurants and franchises with always the same audience and food. Visiting is equivalent to going to

... 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.

Larry Niven. It’s a theme of his collection “A Hole In Space”, about the social impact of teleportation booths.

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