Word: johnson
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...orange roofs and the Simple Simon weather vanes above them always seemed as American as, well, an 85? slice of Ho Jo's apple pie. But now the Boston-based Howard Johnson chain of restaurants and motor lodges is going British, at least in terms of ownership. Chairman Howard B. Johnson, 47, announced last week that an agreement in principle had been reached to sell the chain's 1,040 restaurants and 520 motor lodges to Imperial Group Ltd., a tobacco, food, beer and packaging conglomerate whose famous brands include Players cigarettes and Harp lager. The bundle from...
...Howard Johnson grew out of a notions and ice cream shop founded with borrowed money in Quincy, Mass., in 1925 by Howard D. Johnson, the present chairman's father, who died seven years ago at 75. The business prospered largely on the strength of its butter-rich, multiflavored ice cream (calorie count: 160 for a rounded scoop of chocolate chip). Eager to expand but unable to raise much cash during the Depression, Johnson in the early 1930s became a pioneer in the practice of franchising (though today the company owns some 75% of its restaurants). Later the firm plunged...
...restaurants have not tried to match the marketing razzle-dazzle of such newer competitors as McDonald's and Burger King. Also, their prices are as robust (a "Tendersweet Clam Plate" goes for $4.75) as their food is plain. As one old saw puts it, "Howard Johnson's ice cream comes in 28 flavors and its food in one." In motor lodges the company has fallen behind the quality standards of such major rivals as Holiday Inns and Marriott. Though the company has had record sales and profits for four years running -1978's earnings were $33.6 million...
...operates 5,500 pubs and 30 hotels. It has long been seeking a sizable U.S.beachhead. Buying one is relatively painless because the rising pound (it has climbed in value from $ 1.70 to $2.20 in the past two years) has cut the price of U.S. properties. Though Howard Johnson's management will stay on, the firm is expected to be more aggressive in marketing and expanding, notably on the tight little island where Baskin-Robbins already does a licking good business. Says Imperial Chairman Sir John Pile: "I would expect a Howard Johnson's presence in Britain before...
...part of what Americans would have considered the right stuff. Wolfe lays it all out in brilliantly staged Op Lit scenes: the tacky cocktail lounges of Cocoa Beach where one could hear the Horst Wessel Song sung by ex-rocket scientists of the Third Reich; Vice President Lyndon Johnson furiously cooling his heels outside the Glenn house because Annie Glenn would not let him in during her husband's countdown; Alan Shepard losing a struggle with his full bladder moments before liftoff; the overeager press terrifying Ham the chimp after his proficient flight; the astronauts surrounded by thousands...