J. Willard Marriott, who had moved away with his business partner Hugh Colton and his wife Alice from Utah to Washington, D.C., in 1927, where he operated a curbside food stand selling A&W Root Beer in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington at 14th Street and Park Road NW.
He would later rename the food stand The Hot Shoppe, adding Mexican food items to the menu.[3][2] Marriott's business expanded to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1934, shortly after which the company started its food services division. During Second World War, the business expanded to include the management of food services in defense plants and government buildings, such as the U.S. Treasury.
They introduced popular items such as the "Mighty Mo", a double hamburger served in a bun, topped with sesame seeds and divided into three slices. It was stacked with a dill pickle strip in the top layer and tomato, lettuce, and a distinctive dressing on the bottom layer. Very thick milk shakes were served with a long-handled spoon and an unusually wide straw, both of which would stand upright by themselves in the thick drinks. Similarly thick orange sherbet drinks were served in the same tall glass with a spoon and a straw, often called a "freeze". These would become mainstays of the luncheon menu and be imitated forever thereafter.
Then in the 1950s, Hot Shoppes, Inc. started providing food services to public schools and to Children's National Medical Center in 1955, a contract which they held for 35 years.
The company went public in 1953.[4][5][6] In 1957, the firm expanded into the hotel industry by opening the first Marriott hotel (actually a motel), the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel, in Arlington County, Virginia.
In 1964, Hot Shoppes, Inc. was renamed Marriott-Hot Shoppes, Inc.[7] The company became Marriott Corporation in 1967.
In 1967, Marriott acquired the Big Boy family restaurants chain from Bob Wian.[8][9]
The following year, Marriott acquired the Fort Wayne-based RoBee's, a roast beef sandwich fast-food chain,[10] but later discovered that they would not be able to use the RoBee's name nationally.[11] At the suggestion of the new Marriott board member Bob Wian, cowboy actor Roy Rogers was contacted to lend his name to the roast beef sandwich venture, and the Roy Rogers Family Restaurants was formed a few months later by converting RoBee's and a few Hot Shoppe locations.[12][13]
Over the years, Marriott's company interests expanded. Continuing with food services, Marriott eventually became involved with airline in-flight food service. This segment of their enterprise continues to be a large part of their business, providing food services to many major airlines.
In 1976, Marriott opened two theme parks called Marriott's Great America in California[14] and Illinois.[15] Another was planned for in Maryland but local opposition prevented construction from ever beginning at any of the three proposed sites. The parks had replicas of the first Hot Shoppes. Both parks were sold in the mid-1980s, the one in California was sold to the city of Santa Clara, California and the one in Illinois was sold to Six Flags in 1984. They are both renamed California's Great America and Six Flags Great America, respectively.[16][17]
In 1982, the company acquired Host International for $120 million[18] and also Gino's Inc., the owner of Gino's Hamburgers and Rustler Steak House restaurant chains, for $48.6 million.[19][20] 108 Rustler Steak House Restaurants plus three other restaurants were sold in the following year to two different firms for undisclosed amounts. Newly formed Tenly Enterprises purchased 94 restaurants while Sizzler Restaurants International purchased the remaining 17.[21]
In 1985, the company purchased the Howard Johnson's restaurant chain from the Imperial Group P.L.C. of London for $314 million[23][24] with plans of converting the acquired restaurants to the Bob's Big Boy brand and to make Bob's the largest coffee-shop business in the country.[25]
In 1987, Marriott sold the Big Boy restaurants franchise rights to Elias Brothers for an undisclosed amount while keeping 208 company-owned Bob's Big Boy restaurants in California and selected locations on the East Coast.[26]
In 1988, Marriott purchased all 91 Wag's restaurants from Walgreens Corporation,[27] but dissolved the chain in 1991.
The Roy Rogers chain was sold to Hardee's in 1990 for $365 million in cash.[13]
The Marriott Corporation ended its existence as a single company in 1993, when it was split into two separate entities:[28] 1) Marriott International Corporation, which operated the hotel and lodging aspect of the business and Marriott Vacation Club International, and 2) Host Marriott Corporation, the new name for the original Marriott Corporation and operating the Marriott Food Services Management. The last Hot Shoppes restaurant, located in the Marlow Heights Shopping Center, closed on December 2, 1999.[29]
Hardee's Restaurants LLC is an American fast-food restaurant chain operated by CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. ("CKE") with locations primarily in the Southern and Midwestern United States. The company has evolved through several corporate ownerships since its establishment in 1960 in North Carolina.
Howard Johnson's, or Howard Johnson by Wyndham, is an American hotel chain with locations worldwide, as well as a former restaurant chain. The chain began as a restaurant founded by Howard Deering Johnson in 1925; in the 1950s, the company expanded operations by opening hotels, then known as Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges, which were often located next to restaurants. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it was the largest restaurant chain in the U.S., with more than 1,000 combined company-owned and franchised outlets.
Roy Rogers Franchise Company, LLC is a chain of fast food restaurants primarily located in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. The chain originated as the rebranding of the RoBee's House of Beef chain of Fort Wayne, Indiana, acquired by the Marriott Corporation in February 1968. However, Marriott first used the Roy Rogers Roast Beef name on conversions of the company's Junior Hot Shoppes in the Washington, D.C. area in April 1968, then the existing RoBee's stores. An aggressive nationwide franchising campaign was launched. At its peak, the chain included over 600 locations. The chain now has 37 locations in six states, either company owned or franchised.
Marriott International, Inc. is an American multinational company that operates, franchises, and licenses lodging brands that include hotel, residential, and timeshare properties. Marriott International owns over 30 hotel and timeshare brands with 8,785 locations and 1,597,380 rooms across its network. Marriott International is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. The company was founded by J. Willard Marriott (1900–1985) and his wife Alice Marriott (1907–2000).
Big Boy Restaurant Group, LLC, doing business as Big Boy, is an American casual dining restaurant chain headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. The Big Boy name, design aesthetic, and menu were previously licensed to a number of regional franchisees.
Shoney's is an American restaurant chain headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. As of April 2024, the company operates 58 locations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
John Willard Marriott Sr. was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the founder of the Marriott Corporation, the parent company of the world's largest hospitality, hotel chains, and food services companies. The Marriott company rose from a small root beer stand in Washington, D.C., in 1927 to a chain of family restaurants by 1932, to its first motel in 1957. By the time he died in 1985, the Marriott company operated 1,400 restaurants and 143 hotels and resorts worldwide, including two theme parks, earned US$4.5 billion in revenue annually with 154,600 employees. The company's interests also extended to a line of cruise ships.
Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in hotels. As of December 31, 2023, the company owned 77 upscale hotels containing approximately 42,000 rooms in the United States, Brazil, and Canada.
Robert C. Wian was the founder of the Big Boy restaurant chain. The restaurant started as a 10-stool hamburger stand in Glendale, California, opening in 1936 with an investment of $300 raised from the sale of his car. Wian sold Bob's Big Boy and rights to the Big Boy chain to the Marriott Corp. in 1967 for $7 million.
Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. is a hotel, resort, entertainment, and media company named for one of its assets: the Ryman Auditorium, a National Historic Landmark in Nashville, Tennessee. The company's legal lineage can be traced back to its time as a subsidiary of Edward Gaylord's Oklahoma Publishing Company, however the backbone of the modern entity was formed with the company's acquisition of WSM, Inc. in 1983. This purchase resulted in the ownership of the Grand Ole Opry and associated businesses, including the company's flagship resort property, then known as Opryland Hotel. As such, Ryman Hospitality cites 1925 as its origin year.
Gino's Hamburgers was a fast-food restaurant chain founded in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore Colts defensive end Gino Marchetti and running back Alan Ameche, along with their close friends Joe Campanella and Louis Fischer, in 1957. A new group of restaurants under the Gino's name, involving some of the principals of the original chain, was started in 2010.
Stephen Frasier Bollenbach was a financial manager and former CEO and CFO for many hotel-related organizations. After working with financier Daniel K. Ludwig from 1968 to 1980, he oversaw mergers and acquisitions for various corporations such as the Marriott Corporation, Holiday Corporation, Harrah's Entertainment, the Trump Organization, Disney, and Hilton Hotels. He was on numerous corporate boards, including the non-executive chairman of Los Angeles-based KB Home and a member of the board of directors of Time Warner. Additionally, Bollenbach was on the board of directors for American International Group, Inc. (AIG) during the 2007 financial crisis, and was also a director of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., Macy's, Inc., and the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.
Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, the Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline.
Caesars World Inc. was a hotel and casino operator. It began as Lum's Inc., owner of the Lum's chain of restaurants. It shifted into the gaming business with the purchase of Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip in 1969, selling off the restaurants and changing its name. Caesars grew to eight casinos and resorts over the years, until going through a series of ownership changes beginning in 1995 and was ultimately absorbed by Park Place Entertainment in 1999.
Bob's Big Boy is a casual dining restaurant chain founded by Bob Wian in Southern California in 1936, originally named Bob's Pantry. The chain's signature product is the Big Boy hamburger, which Wian created six months after opening his original location. Slicing a bun into three slices and adding two hamburger patties, Wian is credited with creating the original double-decker hamburger.
Wag's was a chain of casual dining restaurants owned and operated by Walgreens in the 1970s and 1980s. They were modeled after restaurants like Denny's, Shoney's, and Big Boy in that they were mostly 24-hour establishments specializing in inexpensive fare such as hamburgers and breakfast. The chain was based on smaller restaurants that existed in some of the larger Walgreens stores.
The Twin Bridges Motor Hotel, later known as the Twin Bridges Marriott was the first lodging facility operated by what would become Marriott International. It opened on about January 18, 1957, shortly before the second inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and was demolished in 1990.
Dine Brands Global Inc. is a publicly traded food and beverage company based in Pasadena, California. Founded in 1958 as IHOP, it operates franchised and corporate owned full-service restaurants including three restaurant concepts, Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar, International House of Pancakes (IHOP), and Fuzzy's Taco Shop.
↑ Goodman, S. Oliver (February 17, 1953). "Hot Shoppes Plans Public Sale of Stock". Washington Post. p.14. ProQuest152563052. Archived from the original on October 29, 2017. Retrieved October 29, 2017. Hot Shoppes, Inc., family-owned for a quarter of a century, is expected to file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week for the first public offering of shares.
↑ Goodman, S. Oliver (March 18, 1953). "Hot Shoppes Issue Is Sold In Two Hours". Washington Post. p.17. ProQuest152580613. First public offering of Hot Shoppes Inc. common stock was snapped up within two hours yesterday. Some local brokers reported oversubscription by two or three times the amount allotted to them.
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