An Alternate Howard Johnson's

By 1985, Howard Johnson's was a struggling company, mainly with its restaurants, with its hotel chain making more money. All seemed lost, until the franchisees formed a company, called Franchise Associates, and bought both chains, having originally considered buying just the restaurant chain, in early 1986. They decided that they needed to update the chains.

Updates
The first restaurant to be owned and operated by FAI was in Canton, MA., which was a prototype location in the late 1940s. They decided to update the location a bit in 1990, with a new logo, and added an exaggerated pointed arch entryway. The interior kept its furniture, but added TVs and photos of older locations. Also, they tweaked the menu a bit and, seeing that competitor Baskin-Robbins had 31 flavors whereas HoJo's had 28, decided to add ten more flavors including six vegan options. FAI convinced not just existing franchisees to add the arch, but also enticed new franchisees to join the chain. They even brought back Simple Simon and the Pieman, who had been introduced in the 20s, but dormant since the 70s. The motor lodge chain went back to having an A-frame gatehouse and had four floors on the hotels. FAI had suceeded in regaining HoJo's former luster, and by 1995, had over 10,000 locations.

Present Day
The chain surpassed McDonald's as the #1 restaurant in 1997 and became a Fortune 100 company at that time. The chain continues to grow economically, and has over 60,000 restaurants and 45,000 motor lodges worldwide.