Howard Deering Johnson

Roadside restaurants. Johnson, who started with an ice cream stand in Quincy, Massachusetts, franchised his orange-roofed Howard Johnson's restaurants from 1935, when he lacked money to build them himself, supplying food from central commissaries so every outlet tasted the same. By the 1960s it was America's largest restaurant chain by revenue and added motor lodges. It later faded as faster burger chains overtook it.