CHEMICALS FOR:
FOODSERVICE LAUNDRY INDUSTRIAL
If hoteliers want a lesson regarding how drastically dining trends have evolved over the past 40 years, they need to look no further than the history of Howard Johnson’s. A welcome respite for vacationing families and interstate road warriors in the mid-20th century, those orange-domed way stations dotted nearly every highway across the country. At HoJo’s zenith, the chain numbered than 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges. Though people packed its tables and booths, no one mistook a HoJo for a fine dining establishment. In- stead, Howard Johnson’s offered weary travelers a familiar and comfortable place to dine. Essentially, HoJo’s were diners, serving three meals a day from an expansive, but uniform, menu at affordable prices. There wasn’t any deviation into exotic culinary choices. But from the 1930s to the 1970s, that was okay with consumers who, for the most part, had less adventurous eating habits. Given that successful model, it’s easy to understand why full-service hotels built during that era mirrored that trend by featuring a break- fast-to-dinner restaurant. Yet today, only one HoJo restaurant remains. So what happened to make HoJo’s a relic of this country’s collective dining past? Why have morning-to-evening, waitstaff hotel restaurants become a rarity? It all has to do with shifting consumer culinary preferences that are reflected within the walls of modern lodging properties.
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