Defunct restaurant chains and retailers

[Flint1979]

A&P (grocery stores)
Builder's Square
Radio Shack
Waldenbooks

Wow I remember all four of those stores.

I should hope so, because you're a couple of years older than me.

Builder's Square was quite awhile ago. I remember it was owned by Kmart and closed probably 20 years ago.

[abefroman329]

Chase Pitkin - basically a Wegmans version of Home Depot (literally - it was owned/operated by Wegmans)

Howard Johnson's -drops mic-

One more left: https://goo.gl/maps/y2A2ptH5jN72

Wikipedia sez the last HoJo's closed in October 2017, so now the chain is officially defunct.

Can confirm, live nearby. Place was miserable anyway. And the owner was a pervert (his arrest was why the place closed).

I'm sure it was - I went to the Times Square location in 2002 or 2003 (it closed in 2005) and it was pretty run down.  And the menu was a dog's breakfast - I had a Greek salad and some butter pecan ice cream, IIRC.  Don't remember if they were still serving fried clam strips or hot dogs in the split-top bun.

[Flint1979]

The Howard Johnson's in Saginaw closed in April 1997, then they re-opened another Howard Johnson's in Bay City after the Saginaw one closed. The Bay City one closed around I want to say about 2005. The Saginaw one was closed because of Health Code Violations, demolished and has been the location of a Burger King ever since. The Bay City Howard Johnson's continues to rot, it still has Howard Johnson's signing up and the building looks exactly like a Howard Johnson's still with the orange roof but everything is pretty dated, the parking lot is in a million pieces and it's overgrown with weeds. I actually worked at this Howard Johnson's for a few months, I didn't like it.

[inkyatari]

I'm sure it was - I went to the Times Square location in 2002 or 2003 (it closed in 2005) and it was pretty run down.  And the menu was a dog's breakfast - I had a Greek salad and some butter pecan ice cream, IIRC.  Don't remember if they were still serving fried clam strips or hot dogs in the split-top bun.

The irony is that Howard Johnson's motels / motor inns are still a thing, albeit owned by a different company, but even those are rare.

[roadman]

Add Benny's (a Rhode Island department store chain) to this list - their last store closed a couple of weeks ago.

[jp the roadgeek]

A&P (grocery stores)
Builder's Square
Radio Shack
Waldenbooks

Wow I remember all four of those stores.

I should hope so, because you're a couple of years older than me.

Builder's Square was quite awhile ago. I remember it was owned by Kmart and closed probably 20 years ago.

And Waldenbooks went down with Borders in 2011.

[briantroutman]

Wikipedia sez the last HoJo's closed in October 2017, so now the chain is officially defunct.

To avoid repeating myself, I'll link a comment I made in another thread in 2016: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18660.msg2169612#msg2169612

But in short, the Howard Johnson Company ceased existing in 1985. Marriott bought the company to strip it of lucrative toll road contracts and prime real estate and throw the remains away. A ragtag co-op of franchisees–a mere shadow of the former company in all respects–formed in 1986 to keep the few remaining restaurant locations alive, but that organization finally winked out in 2005. Any locations that hung afterward were basically zombies.

So depending on how you want to slice it, the Howard Johnson's restaurant chain has been dead for either 12 or 32 years.

The irony is that Howard Johnson's motels / motor inns are still a thing, albeit owned by a different company, but even those are rare.

Not that rare–supposedly 393 locations as of the end of 2015. At the company's height in the '70s, it had a little over 500 motor lodges.

The difference is that back then, all 500+ locations were actually Howard Johnson's–built as HJ motor lodges with standardized architecture, room layouts, and decor packages designed by the Howard Johnson Company. Since 1985, as original orange-roofed lodges have gradually been abandoned, demolished, or converted to other brands–and as other unrelated hotels have been admitted to the Howard Johnson chain with little in the way of conversion–the number of purpose-built HJ locations left in the system has fallen to (I'd estimate) less than 5% of the total. And so there's nothing to distinguish a dumpy motel flying the HJ flag from one under the Days Inn, Ramada, or any other race-to-the-bottom banner.

[thenetwork]

And so there's nothing to distinguish a dumpy motel flying the HJ flag from one under the Days Inn, Ramada, or any other race-to-the-bottom banner.

Ramada Inn used to be a good hotel chain as well back in the day.  You can also add Travelodge, Knight's Inn and Red Roof Inns to that mix of lower end motels/hotels that used to be of good quality back in their heydays.  Nowadays, the inconsistency between properties on those lower end chains is wider than it's ever been.

Another hotel chain I don't hear much of anymore, but is of much better quality, is Sheraton.  It seemed there were a lot more of them back in the 70s than today.  Perhaps they got rid of their smaller "motor inn" properties in favor of more larger, upscale airport and downtown properties?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Yeah, the Sheraton generally seems to be the most expensive per-night chain in whatever places I frequently visit.

[briantroutman]

Sheraton...Perhaps they got rid of their smaller "motor inn" properties in favor of more larger, upscale airport and downtown properties?

Based on my observations, that seems to be the case. Sheraton's roots in the 1930s and '40s were in higher end city hotels, but beginning in the mid '50s, the company focused growth on mid-market Sheraton Motor Inns. These were generally highway-oriented locations, typically in suburbs and small towns, and they were roughly comparable to nicer Holiday Inns and Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges of the era. 

Up through the '70s, the public's expectation was that any decent middle-class hotel would have an on-site restaurant, bell service, a lounge, and event rooms. But that perception began to change in the '80s when new limited service brands like Comfort and Hampton appeared, offering style and appointments that appealed to middle-class tastes but without restaurants and extra services that siphoned off profits. Hence a Hampton Inn was able to offer a nicer and newer room at a lower rate than an aging Sheraton Motor Inn across the street.

Unlike most other large hotel companies, Sheraton never really made a serious play for the limited service market. Through the '80s, 20-year-old Sheraton Motor Inns in places like Danville, PA and Tucumcari, NM were purged from the chain, not to be replaced. The company increased its focus on metropolitan locations and development outside the US. Now that Sheraton's parent company is under the ownership of Marriott, and given that Sheraton doesn't have a very strong identity vs. Marriott's own full-service brand, I wouldn't be surprised if the Sheraton name disappears or is reserved for a specific niche.

By the way, if any of you are interested in hotels...or gas stations or restaurants, I'd highly recommend a series of books by John Jakle and Keith Sculle: The Motel in America, The Gas Station in America, and Fast Food. (They actually refer to this set of three as their "gas/food/lodging"  trilogy.) Each one takes a remarkably in-depth look at the development of the industry in question (particularly as it relates to the development of highways and auto travel), analyzes the changing forms of architecture for these businesses, and gives histories of many individual chains. Each volume is approachable and easy to read but scholarly in its level of detail and thoughtful analysis.

[inkyatari]

Another hotel chain I don't hear much of anymore, but is of much better quality, is Sheraton.  It seemed there were a lot more of them back in the 70s than today.  Perhaps they got rid of their smaller "motor inn" properties in favor of more larger, upscale airport and downtown properties?

I remember, when I was a young'un back in the 70's, there was one in downtown Joliet, IL.  Even as a youngster, I recall thinking "why is this here?"

Today it's the Louis Joliet Renaissance center building of Joliet Junior College.

[Brandon]

^^ Today, that building is gone, torn down for a new City Center campus.

[abefroman329]

And so there's nothing to distinguish a dumpy motel flying the HJ flag from one under the Days Inn, Ramada, or any other race-to-the-bottom banner.

Ramada Inn used to be a good hotel chain as well back in the day.  You can also add Travelodge, Knight's Inn and Red Roof Inns to that mix of lower end motels/hotels that used to be of good quality back in their heydays.  Nowadays, the inconsistency between properties on those lower end chains is wider than it's ever been.

Another hotel chain I don't hear much of anymore, but is of much better quality, is Sheraton.  It seemed there were a lot more of them back in the 70s than today.  Perhaps they got rid of their smaller "motor inn" properties in favor of more larger, upscale airport and downtown properties?

Days Inn used to be good quality.  Travelodge hotels in the UK are of much higher quality than those in the US, probably comparable to a Courtyard.  Even Motel 6 had noble aspirations in the beginning, but the only reason I've set foot in a Motel 6 or a Red Roof Inn is because we own a dog and pets stay free at all locations.

[abefroman329]

Wikipedia sez the last HoJo's closed in October 2017, so now the chain is officially defunct.

To avoid repeating myself, I'll link a comment I made in another thread in 2016: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18660.msg2169612#msg2169612

But in short, the Howard Johnson Company ceased existing in 1985. Marriott bought the company to strip it of lucrative toll road contracts and prime real estate and throw the remains away. A ragtag co-op of franchisees–a mere shadow of the former company in all respects–formed in 1986 to keep the few remaining restaurant locations alive, but that organization finally winked out in 2005. Any locations that hung afterward were basically zombies.

My dad, a former manager of Howard Johnson's restaurants, would probably argue that they ceased to exist when they stopped serving HoJo Cola.

[inkyatari]

^^ Today, that building is gone, torn down for a new City Center campus.

That was within the last few years, wasn't it?

[AlexandriaVA]

I'm sure it was - I went to the Times Square location in 2002 or 2003 (it closed in 2005) and it was pretty run down.  And the menu was a dog's breakfast - I had a Greek salad and some butter pecan ice cream, IIRC.  Don't remember if they were still serving fried clam strips or hot dogs in the split-top bun.

The irony is that Howard Johnson's motels / motor inns are still a thing, albeit owned by a different company, but even those are rare.

Stayed at a Howard Johnson's hotel in Staunton VA a few years back. Nothing at all remarkable, just one of countless budget hotels. No connection at all to the erstwhile restaurants.

[Brandon]

^^ Today, that building is gone, torn down for a new City Center campus.

That was within the last few years, wasn't it?

Yes.  They also bought the Chicken N Spice building.

[briantroutman]

Days Inn used to be good quality.

Let me apologize in advance for repeating myself–although new people sometimes jump in later in the conversation or new thread retreads the same ground as a different thread in the past, so I think it bears repeating here. This was my observation on the lifecycle of many lodging chains in the past half century:

- One person (or a small group of people) has a clear vision of what a budget motel should be
- This visionary starts to assemble a chain of purpose-built motels with a consistent design and level of service
- The properties are all company owned or very closely supervised franchisees
- The chain becomes a remarkable success

THEN

- The founder is out of the picture
- A flock of Wall Street vultures swoop in to "extract untapped value from the brand"
- They begin (or accelerate) franchising, loosen standards, and perhaps even dispose of all company-owned properties
- The chain becomes a dumping ground for old properties dropped from better chains

This applies to Days Inn perfectly. The chain was founded by Cecil B. Day, an Atlanta real estate developer in 1970. This was about 15 years after chains like Holiday Inn set the standard for what were then known as "motor inns" , and he felt that these national brands had left Middle America behind–that their new hotels gotten too large, too luxurious, and were becoming increasingly focused on urban areas and high-dollar travelers. (Ironically, it was the lack of decent, inexpensive, family-oriented motels on cross-country road trip that inspired Kemmons Wilson to found Holiday Inn in the first place.)

So Day set out to build a chain of unabashedly family-focused motels, especially along rural Interstate exits in the South that other chains had neglected. Early Days Inns had a standardized design with outdoor-corridor rooms surrounding a small outdoor pool and playground. The only indoor public area was under a single steeply pitched roof–a building housing the chain's in-house Tasty World restaurant (a Denny's-like operation), a small gift shop, registration desk, and office. Being a devout Baptist, Day insisted that his inns serve no alcohol. Most locations had a few gas pumps on site. Rates were sometimes 25-50% less than a nearby Holiday Inn. Many inns were company-owned; others were operated under close supervision.

Day's timing was impeccable. He built motels along the Interstate corridors of the Southeast and in central Florida just as Walt Disney World opened its gates. As fuel crises and inflation cut into the working class's travel budgets, Days Inns' budget rates and the ability to reserve a tank of gasoline with your room were hard to resist. And Cecil Day's personal obsession with consistency and operational standards led to high customer satisfaction.

Cecil died of cancer in 1978, and his family lost interest in the business soon after. The chain was sold to a "private equity firm"  in 1984, taken public, then private, into bankruptcy, and unbelievably, purchased out of bankruptcy in 1991 by the corporate raider who bought it from the Day family in 1984. By the end of it all, the company-owned properties had been sold off, quality standards were forgotten, and a Days Inn could be anything from a former Holiday Inn with a revolving rooftop restaurant on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago to a 24-room truck stop motel in rural Virginia.

[inkyatari]

^^ Today, that building is gone, torn down for a new City Center campus.

That was within the last few years, wasn't it?

Yes.  They also bought the Chicken N Spice building.

Chicken N Spice is no more?   

[Brandon]

^^ Today, that building is gone, torn down for a new City Center campus.

That was within the last few years, wasn't it?

Yes.  They also bought the Chicken N Spice building.

Chicken N Spice is no more?   

They've bought the building.  Chicken N Spice is still there, but will have to eventually move.

[inkyatari]

^^ Today, that building is gone, torn down for a new City Center campus.

That was within the last few years, wasn't it?

Yes.  They also bought the Chicken N Spice building.

Chicken N Spice is no more?   

They've bought the building.  Chicken N Spice is still there, but will have to eventually move.

I hope they get a spot in the new building.  Place is a local.. Well.. maybe not legend, but it's very popular.

[thenetwork]

Even Motel 6 had noble aspirations in the beginning, but the only reason I've set foot in a Motel 6 or a Red Roof Inn is because we own a dog and pets stay free at all locations.

There are/were some nicer Motel 6's.  Back in the 90s, I stayed in a Motel 6 just off of N. Michigan Avenue in Chicago.  I think it was about 12 stories.

One interesting fact of the past about Motel 6.  There was a LAW once in Palm Springs (may have been in the whole PS region -- at least into the early 90s) where lodging facilities in their town(s) could *NOT* be called "motels".  You can call them Inns, Lodges or Hotels.  Motels could give Palm Springs "negative" impressions

Motel 6 had to have all exterior signs in Palm Springs altered to say Hotel 6, while all Motel 6 paraphernalia inside the building was the normal logo. 

I stayed there once in the Hotel 6 era, when Sonny Bono was Mayor in '89, and when I returned in 2003, I stayed there again, and by that time, the law was dropped and the Hotel officially "reverted" to a Motel 6. 

Both times I stayed it was a better than average motel.

[abefroman329]

There are/were some nicer Motel 6's.

I've stayed in clean Motel 6s, and newly-renovated Motel 6s, and clean AND newly-renovated Motel 6s, but none that I would call "nice" or even "nicer."  In every case, I've wanted to get up and leave shortly after sunrise.

[Flint1979]

There has never been a Motel 6 that I stayed at for more than just the night. I'm pretty sure I checked out right after waking up.

[hbelkins]

There are/were some nicer Motel 6's.

I've stayed in clean Motel 6s, and newly-renovated Motel 6s, and clean AND newly-renovated Motel 6s, but none that I would call "nice" or even "nicer."  In every case, I've wanted to get up and leave shortly after sunrise.

I spent the night recently in a Motel 6 in Hillsville, Va. It's a former Best Western. I can't imagine the Hampton across the road or the HI Express next door being any nicer.