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Howard Johnson's Inn & Restaurants


Ashikaga

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Were there others than the one near Stella Link and Bellaire near the railroad tracks in the later 50ss?

Are you saying that Howard Johnson's was the first ice cream shop in Houston? I don't think so. I remember the Rettig's shops from the early 40's. There was one on the SE corner of Main and Elgin, near where I lived at that time. The Rettig's factory was near downtown, not far from the YMCA. They may have existed before that, but that's the earliest I remember.

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Probably not the first ice cream shop but definitely a Houston original. I remember going to the one your talking about on Bellaire when I was a kid. Don't know if there were any others in Houston but I do remember seeing them in other cities. It was also a restaurant and they were sometimes coupled with their hotels.

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I remember going to at least one other Howard Johnsons in Houston and remember staying in a few of them along the southern US. I remember taking a tour of the Bordens Ice Cream factory near Montrose and getting little "hand packed" cartons at the attached store front. I remember 2Ks near Sakowitz when the Galleria was just getting built. I remember "31 Flavors" @ Westbury Square. What I don't remember is Rettigs. Tell me more!

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What I don't remember is Rettigs.

Rettig's had many locations around Houston - here is a listing of a few:

http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...ost&p=40166

one of the locations - Yale? - is still standing

If memory serves, Penn Rettig sold the business to Borden quite a ways back...he and his family lived in the Mott house that was recently demolished on Woodbury

and for some ephemera:

rettigs47sm.jpg

rettigs.jpg

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Howard Johnson's started in the North East and wasn't a Houston original by any stretch of the imagination, in fact Houston probably got them very late as they spread across the country. I doubt Rettig's was the first ice cream parlor here, either.

There's a Rettig's building on Studemont - bicycle shop or sewing shop or something now? I think there was an old thread which identified one on N. Wayside, 200 block, as a Rettig's, very different style, but I can't get that link above to open.

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There's a Rettig's building on Studemont - bicycle shop or sewing shop or something now? I think there was an old thread which identified one on N. Wayside, 200 block, as a Rettig's, very different style, but I can't get that link above to open.

the Studewood one must be Herman's Shoe Shop at 1301 Studewood

the other is the Heap-o-Cream at 210 Wayside:

http://www.houstondeco.org/1940s/rettigs.html

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the Studewood one must be Herman's Shoe Shop at 1301 Studewood

the other is the Heap-o-Cream at 210 Wayside:

http://www.houstondeco.org/1940s/rettigs.html

Herman's Shoe Shop has been such as long as I can remember and that's going back to the 60's. Rettig's may have been the ice cream parlor that was at the "V" where N. Main and Studewood and ??? another street meet. I remember going there as a VERY little kid. I remember the soda fountain stools and ceiling fans they had in there and the place smelling like ice cream cones...

There WAS a Heap-o-Cream on Yale next to the park there. I remember that one too. My family was pretty entrenched in that area -- both sides of it...so, I spent a lot of time over there in the heights when I was a kid. I have a very vivid memory of the area going back to the mid-60's.

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  • 1 month later...
Rettig's was very recognizable because of the window style. That is why I immediately recognized this building as being a Rettig's at one time. This one is (was) on either Studewood between 11th and 14th, or on North Main near 20th.

There is still a Heap O Cream building located on Near East End at corner of Telephone Rd & about one block from Dumble (across from old Bert's Liquor store). Has been terrible remuddled into a Mex eatery but when was a ice cream place (before & around 1968-74) had the best Pineapple Freeze's in the world! It is discussed in detail under East End section. Best part was the location of the building as you sat and chatted over malts you would see all vehicle traffic swoosh around the corner in what seemed like the world at the time. Funny how all parts of Houston were so different from each other. :P So it seemed as a kid.

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At one time or another, there were at least 4 other Howard Johnson's restaurant locations in the Houston area. Each of these was part of a HJ restaurant/motor lodge complex:

-Gulf Freeway, just inside Loop 610

-Loop 610 Near the Astrodome

-I-45 North near Crosstimbers

-Katy Freeway (not sure exactly where)

The restaurant at each of these locations ceased being a Howard Johnson's by the mid 1980's. The Bellaire Blvd. location dropped the HJ name in about 1970 or so (probably about the same time the nearby Astrodome location opened).

There was also an HJ Motor Lodge complex on the SW Freeway near the Memorial Hermann SW Hospital, that was only open for a few years in the late 70's-early 80's. I'm not sure if there was an HJ restaurant adjacent to it.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Are you saying that Howard Johnson's was the first ice cream shop in Houston? I don't think so. I remember the Rettig's shops from the early 40's. There was one on the SE corner of Main and Elgin, near where I lived at that time. The Rettig's factory was near downtown, not far from the YMCA. They may have existed before that, but that's the earliest I remember.

I think I read that it was in the 1920s that Howard Johnson's was the one who sold so many different flavors of ice cream, I think 25. The Baskin Robbins came out with 30-something. How many possible different flavors could be invented?

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Thanks for all that history!

Orange Julius anyone?

Oh my gosh! I haven't thought about those for years! Back in the 1940's, there were several Orange Julius stands in Houston. The beverage was regarded by some as a healthy alternative to other soda fountain drinks because it supposedly contained real orange juice - sort of the "smoothie" of its day, I guess.

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Lisa Gray's current article is about the old Howard Johnson on 45:

___________________

For years, the Bodhi Society's meditation room and headquarters have been inside the Red Carpet Inn/Kuan Yin Zen Retreat Center. It's not the spare, elegant kind of Zen retreat where you might run into Warren Beatty. It's a former Howard Johnson's, after all, an edge-of-the-freeway hotel where rooms rent for $35 a night.

But Wang has plans. The swimming pool is empty now, but this summer, in time for the family retreats, it'll be full of blue water. Bamboo arches hold clear plastic sheets over hundreds of potted plants: The Zen garden, waiting to put down roots.

Wang opened the restaurant just last week, a place that offers an experience far from Howard Johnson's. She likes the idea that her vegetarian cooking might save the lives of thousands of chickens and cows. And she believes that by eating "pure" foods, even non-Buddhists will become a little "softer" and more open to the dharma.

She hopes that diners will take one of the Zen books or CDs that she offers, free, on a shelf by the front door. Or better still, maybe they'll ask about her meditation sessions.

Everyone needs to meditate, she says. It brings you closer to your essence, to the immortal part of you, the part that outlives your body.

"The things of this world," she says, "they do not last."

___________________

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/ar...ay/5457535.html

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The old HoJo's location on Gulf Freeway (just inside Loop 610) is no longer a HoJo's--it's now a Red Carpet Inn. But, the old lobby building still sports the Orange Roof. It's the only one left in the Houston area that I'm aware of. Check it out here:

HoJo's Houston-Southeast

BTW, the rest of the autoage.org site is pretty cool if you're a HoJo-ologist like me. Lots of pictures documenting the chain's rise and fall.

True that, Ashikaga--hotel chains no longer show the same standardization or eye-catching logos they used to. I kinda miss these, though:

  • Howard Johnson's orange roofs
  • Ramada Inn's "innkeeper" signs (horn w/banner)
  • Holiday Inn's "Great Signs," that looked like something straight from Broadway
  • Quality Inn's old "gold medal"-looking signs, with the blue ribbon off to one side
  • Shoney's/Bob's/Frisch's/etc. Big Boy

Road trips are little less fun these days without them!

I just joined AARP. Howard Johnson's is one of the hotels that I can get a 10% at. But I learned from its website that it is only one of many that belong to one company which also includes, Ramada, Super 8, TravelLodge, Baymont, and others. I'm pretty sure Houston has a Howard Johnson's, Ramada, and a Super 8. I don't know about those others.

All of their logos have changed over the years. Ramada no longer has the rotund innkeeper blowing a horn and TravelLodge no longer has the sleepwalking bear.

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Rettig's was very recognizable because of the window style. That is why I immediately recognized this building as being a Rettig's at one time. This one is (was) on either Studewood between 11th and 14th, or on North Main near 20th.

WhatStore.jpg

It looks like a shoe repair shop is the "sole" business that's in the building.

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  • 3 weeks later...
The only Howard Johnson's Inn & Restaurant over here is in Beaumont. But it doesn't have the orange roof that Howard Johnson's was famous for. I read that the orange roofs are virtually extinct. Did any survive over there in Houston?

I turned 50 last week and I joined AARP. Howard Johnson's is one of the hotels that will give me a 10-15% discount.

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  • 3 months later...
There was a Howard Johnson's restaurant on Bellaire, it was on the spot where Moellers Bakery is located now. (In front of the old Palace Bowling Lanes)

Yesss! That's the Howard Johnson's I'd been wracking my brain to remember from my toddlerhood! My parents used to take me there in the early fifties. They would buy me an ice cream cone and my dad would set me on the hood of the car to eat it and drip it all over the fender. I remember that the scoops of ice cream weren't round; they were pointy-shaped.

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Rettig's was very recognizable because of the window style. That is why I immediately recognized this building as being a Rettig's at one time. This one is (was) on either Studewood between 11th and 14th, or on North Main near 20th.

WhatStore.jpg

For years I'd had a childhood memory of being taken, in the early 50's, to an ice cream shop with a name that sounded like Reddig's. I thought it might have been located where Hugo's Restaurant (Westheimer at Mandell) is now. Turns out I was only a few blocks off. An August, 2005, post says that there was a Rettig's on Westheimer at Windsor-- later turned into a key shop--across from the Daiquiri factory. What a relief to get that straight in my mind!
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  • 5 months later...
  • The title was changed to Howard Johnson's Inn & Restaurants

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