Homage to HoJo's

Foodie is in mourning for HoJo's. Yes, the orange and blue joints with the fried clam rolls and the clam chowder and hot dogs served in that lovely grilled roll, perfect REAL fresh onion rings,  mocha chip ice cream, Simple Simon the Pieman and all that,  are "going the way of the Studebaker," according to a recent AP story.  Eight restaurants left out of 800, the once dominant Howard Johnson chain is dwindling away, with the Times Square HoJo's evidently doomed to die this month.

Curiously, as a kid Foodie and her family took car trips in first a dark blue, then a maroon Studebaker around New England,  stopping at assorted HoJo's along the way. (We could pick 'em! My dad also owned a wire recorder, not a tape recorder. EBay, take note.)  We usually piled into a booth but when things were crowded we perched at the counter, like sparrows on a phone line, three iced teas and an iced coffee.

Foodie is consoled by two things--one, her collection of HoJoabilia, including a way too modern 1970's plastic HoJo from a train set and a vintage 1950's HoJo bank, and two, the fact that she was able to take her own offspring to the odd HoJo's in his early years, once even driving miles out of the way to track one down.  Now the kid is 21 and none of us eats hot dogs, in truth, and Starbuck's  Java Chip ice cream is excellent, though it never will  eradicate the memory of HJ's mocha chip.  Sigh.

p.s.  Foodie and her niece, both devotees of Woolworth's lunch counters,  ate together at one on its closing day, each ordering the classic grilled American cheese sandwich and cup of tomato soup combo one last time.

Comments

[Ezra]

Never been to a HoJo's, sad to say, but I was also a devotee of the Woolworth's lunch counter. The last one I saw still in operation was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as late as 1995.

If you ever find yourself driving across the midwest, try stopping at one of the very much kicking Waffle Houses for a similar atmosphere. They're perfect little yellow and brown Mies Van Der Rohe-ish boxes, and you can find them at pretty much every interstate exit.

[Cynthia]

Suddenly, I have an overwhelmind desire for HoJo's fried clams -- even though, HoJos having disappeared from Chicago's suburbs decades ago, I hadn't thought of them for years. But they were one of my favorite foods as a child. I can still remember how they tasted -- or do I just remember the memory of my delight (don't know if they'd taste the same to me now).

Besides enjoying ice cream and fried clams, it was at Howard Johnson's that I first learned that Coke was a brand name -- because HoJo had HoJoCola.

Sic transit gloria.

[Foodie]

"Fascinating, the onslaut of data is confusing!"
This from my pal Marian, aged 94, as we sit at the public library exploring the Internets together. She is a food lover who just ate a generous lunch of cheese spinach ravioli, ribs, and salad. This followed a trip to Costco, our "club."

[betty]

I rmemeber in the 70's in downtown chicago, me and my mother would go shopping and always stop at the woolworth counter.i remember some kind piece of paper, that if you open it, you could win a free sundae, and i usually did.then after meetingt my dad after his work, we would go to the walgreens cafeteria in the basement.;
we always sat in the same ( i think) green booths.yes, those were the good old days,oh, and let's not forget,to use the bathroom, you had to put in a dime to open the stall,sometimes i crawled underneath.

[Foodie]

Very vague memories are surfacing of a YMCA or YWCA cafeteria I loved as a kid....all those choices...still am a fan of cafeterias, another vanishing species. Luby's is gone from New Mexico, maybe everywhere?--in the south I think you can still go to Morrison's for black eyed peas, and greens and corn bread and and and and...ghastly blue jello and hideous marshmallow-infected salads, but still...the Sweet Tomato places offer a few of the same thrills, but.

Google informs me that Picadilly bought Morrison's but that both names continue, as does Luby's, in the south.
Why are all these places in the south, fellow foodies? Because of a strong veg sidedish tradition?

[Cynthia]

My guess would be that it's because the population is heading south as it ages. The people who remember are keeping those places alive.