“From Beloved Beacon to Forgotten Relic: Unraveling the Astonishing Decline of Howard Johnson’s Empire”
And so it was that as the Great Depression was about to kick off, Johnson opened his first such fully fledged Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Quincy. It would eventually grow to include such culinary staples as tender-sweet fried clams, which were a creation of the Saffron Brothers in Ipswich, Massachusetts, essentially just fried clams that had their bellies removed. Beyond this, it had many home style favorites like steak, mashed potatoes, chicken pot pies, hamburgers, hotdogs, etc. As for his overall philosophy? Top quality, but without making it too fancy. He stated, “If you say Halibut Dante, the average American will never buy it. But if you say halibut with cream and tomato sauce, he’ll not only buy it, but he’ll say it’s great.”
Naturally given the stock market crash of 1929, his business expansion plans were abruptly put on hold… Undeterred, as the Depression wore on and he couldn’t get a loan to open additional locations, nor did he have the extra capital on hand himself for it, he decided to think outside the box. What if instead of him fronting the cost, someone else did so and they could just use his restaurant model, brand, suppliers, and recipes in exchange? Essentially, what if he franchised his business model and brand?
While you’ll sometimes hear that Howard Johnson was the first to ever institute the idea of franchising, this is an exaggeration. For starters, franchising in some form has been around since at least medieval times in landowner franchise-like agreements. And even in America franchise like agreements were a thing from the early going. For example, Ben Franklin instituted a franchising model on September 13, 1731 when he and one Thomas Whitmarsh entered into a deal allowing Whitmarsh to create a separate printing operation to print and sell such things as Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac in the region of South Carolina, but with Franklin retaining the rights to enter into similar contracts with others elsewhere, and with Whitmarsh required to maintain all operating expenses and the location and the like.
