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As of 2016, only one Howard Johnson’s restaurant remains: in Lake George, New York. The food and beverage rights to the restaurant are currently owned by Wyndham Worldwide. The line of branded supermarket frozen foods, including ice cream, is no longer manufactured.
At its zenith, Howard Johnson’s operated more than 1,000 restaurants, including the Ground Round brand. (Note: The Howard Johnson hotel chain is still operating.)
There will soon be just one Howard Johnson restaurant left in the U.S., as its other location in Maine prepares to shutter. The Bangor restaurant—part of a chain that once numbered more than 800 eateries—will close on Sept. 6, the Associated Press reported. The last Howard Johnson restaurant is in Lake George, N.Y.
Bangor, Maine
1954
Wyndham Hotel Group
The last one standing is in Lake George, a summer tourist spot in New York’s Adirondacks. Howard Deering Johnson , the chain’s founder, started his food empire in 1925 with an ice-cream shop outside Boston. He was an early pioneer of franchising. At one point in the 1960s, a new restaurant opened every nine days.