Howard D. Johnson founded his chain of restaurants in Quincy, MA, in 1925 after buying a corner pharmacy and installing a soda fountain. He fashioned his ice cream recipes by adding ample butterfat, making his “28 Flavors of Ice Cream” very popular. With ice cream at its core, his restaurants grew to become the largest restaurant chain in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. Some locations, including this one, also added hotels or motels to their property. Records indicate this franchised location was built in the late 1940s, with the hotel added in the 1950s. The owners stopped turning a profit in the mid-1970s and folded, and it became the Passport Inn. Fondly known as HoJos, the last Howard Johnson restaurant in Lake George, New York, closed in June of 2022, and Wyndham Hotels owns the few remaining hotels.

By 2000, the hotel had grown seedier and was known as the Crosstown Inn. By 2005, the 50-room hotel and land were for sale for $2.1 million. By 2014, the hotel was demolished, and a Chipotle, Chick Filet, and Jersey Mike’s sub shop joined retailers like Verizon in the doughnut-shaped shopping complex on the southeast corner of Dale Mabry and Gandy Boulevards. This image of Jersey Mike’s shows the part of the complex closest to where the original Howard Johnson’s restaurant stood.