There will soon be just one Howard Johnson restaurant left in the U.S., as its other location in Maine prepares to shutter.
The Bangor restaurant—part of a chain that once numbered more than 800 eateries—will close on Sept. 6, the Associated Press reported. The last Howard Johnson restaurant is in Lake George, N.Y.
The owners of the Bangor restaurant, David and Sally Patel, said they had struggled to keep the business going in recent years.
“It’s not worth it to keep it open. We tried for four years,” Sally Patel said Tuesday in an interview with the AP. “We felt bad to close it.”
Under a signature orange roof, Howard Johnson restaurants served up American diner classics, including patty melts, milkshakes, chicken and biscuits, and “famous” fried clam strips.
Loyal customers lamented the loss of an American classic.
“A lot of people have warm, fuzzy memories of a more innocent time,” said Walter Mann, of New Haven, Conn., whose website documents the restaurant’s history, according to the AP. “People certainly crave for something like that to bring back the good memories.”
