Typically, McDonald’s is thought of as the first fast-food restaurant franchise. While they have been very successful since the 1950’s, they were not the first to develop the fast-food restaurant model. Pioneers in the food industry began in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
In 1921, White Castle founders Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson started the fast-food system in the US. Ingram was a real-estate developer with an eye for business and Anderson was a cook who had experience in running food stands. Their signature item is the “slider,” a small burger that was sold for just 5 cents at the time.
The company still operates many branches in the Midwest of the US. White Castle grew because Anderson had a vision for how to keep quality standards the same at each location. Not only did he invent the hamburger bun, but he developed a system for an assembly line and trained cooks; An operations manual was developed to keep the consistency with products and employee training from store to store.
While White Castle is solely company-owned and not a franchise, it is important to note the company’s influence on fast-food businesses that followed.
Howard Johnson’s
While Howard Johnson’s is now a name of the past, it is an example of a successful business model in the mid-1900’s and the first true restaurant franchise.
Howard Johnson started by borrowing money to run a pharmacy. It was 1925 and his new soda fountain was bringing in a good profit to the store. He developed 28 ice cream flavors from his original vanilla recipe, and expanded the pharmacy to summertime concession stands at the beaches on the Massachusetts coastline. These stands sold hot dogs, ice cream, and soft drinks. The money he earned allowed him to ask the bank for a loan to open his first sit-down restaurant.
In 1929, the first restaurant opened in Quincy, Massachusetts. While running and growing the business was very difficult, with the stock market crash that same year, in 1932 a second restaurant was opened as a franchise. From here until the start of World War II, Howard Johnson’s restaurant franchises increased to 200 stores.
Because of war rationing, the company could not sustain that number and only 12 restaurants were still open in 1944. After the war, however, several turnpikes were built and Johnson made sure to have a restaurant as a convenient stop off for travelers. In 1954, the company expanded into the hotel business and opened a lodge alongside the restaurant.
The peak of the company was in the early 1970’s, with over 1,000 restaurants and 500 lodges. However, the times changed again with the oil embargo, limiting leisure travel. In the end, Howard Johnson’s did not evolve with the increasing competition. One restaurant remains open in Lake George, New York, billed the “Last One Standing.”
Both White Castle and Howard Johnson’s paved the way for many more companies to try their hand at fast food and casual dining. Contact us here at Franchise Maven to learn more about available food franchises that may feed your desire to run a business.
