Gone but not forgotten Philadelphia-area diners (was Diners in Philadelphia Area)
Boxall's Accommodation
Stenton Avenue (duh) between Washington Lane South and Washington
Lane. It moved across Washington Lane South in the late 1960s. The
original location is now a Citizens Bank (née Mellon Bank PSFS, née
Mellon Bank, née Girard Bank -- which was originally across Stenton
Avenue). The second location closed in the early 1980s and was
converted into a Pizza Hut -- one of the few with a basement. There
was once a Howard Johnson's on that block as well which is now the
site of the third Pep Boys on that block (the first had been across
the street and was a Chicken George for a time).
What happened to the Kenyon (later "New Kenyon") Diner in
Glenside/Edge Hill area?
Regina Litman
> Stenton Diner -- it had two different locations. The first was on
> Stenton Avenue (duh) between Washington Lane South and Washington
> Lane. It moved across Washington Lane South in the late 1960s. The
> original location is now a Citizens Bank (née Mellon Bank PSFS, née
> Mellon Bank, née Girard Bank -- which was originally across Stenton
> Avenue). The second location closed in the early 1980s and was
> converted into a Pizza Hut -- one of the few with a basement. There
> was once a Howard Johnson's on that block as well which is now the
> site of the third Pep Boys on that block (the first had been across
> the street and was a Chicken George for a time).
The Pep Boys in Willow Grove is also on the site of an old Howard
Johnson's. In fact, there was a whole motel on the site. By the time I
first passed through the area in 1979 (I remember eating at this HoJo's
late Saturday night, October 13, 1979), the motel had some non-chain
name, but I always wondered if it had once been a Howard Johnson's Motor
Lodge because of the presence of a Howard Johnson's restaurant right
outside of it. There was another motel with a non-chain name further up
Route 611, just before County Line Road that I think also had a Howard
Johnson's out front, which led me to think that this one may have also
once been a HoJo's Motor Lodge.
In between being a Howard Johnson's and being part of the Pep Boys site,
the one in Willow Grove was a diner called the Willow Grove Diner. I
think this was in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The Pep Boys opened in
March 1994. I remember WOGL air personalities appearing there for the
grand opening.
The restaurant on the other site, near County Line Road, is now occupied
by the Red Lion Diner. There was also a Red Lion Diner on Red Lion Road
at Bustleton Avenue in the Northeast, and I think the two diners may
have had some joint ownership, which could explain the use of the "Red
Lion" name for a diner so far from Red Lion Road. The site of the one in
the Northeast is now occupied by an Eckerd Drugs. Across Bustleton from
this site is an up-and-coming Walgreen's, where there was once a Roy
Rogers-turned-Boston Market. And on a third corner in this intersection
is a Rite Aid where there was once a sporting goods store. The fourth
corner contains a strip shopping center which appears to be doing well,
but I keep expecting to see signs that it's going to be torn down to
make way for a CVS.
Because of the design of the old Howard Johnson's restaurants, there are
more than one that survived to become diners. The Michael's in Glenside
is a former HoJo's, and there was a Howard Johnson's on City Avenue that
also became a diner. Plus the Villanova Diner was once a Howard Johnson's.
Boxall's Accommodation
> Because of the design of the old Howard Johnson's restaurants, there are
> more than one that survived to become diners. The Michael's in Glenside
> is a former HoJo's, and there was a Howard Johnson's on City Avenue that
> also became a diner. Plus the Villanova Diner was once a Howard Johnson's.
Apparently the design of most of the restaurants was based on the old
Norfolk Downs railroad station on the Old Colony Line in Quincy,
Mass., and the concept on the Harvey Houses that followed the Santa Fe
Railway and later Route 66 out West.
The one in Glenside (where I ate often as a young child) became a Big
Boy before turning into Michael's.
They are still out there including two in Delaware. Here's the
complete list (The Broadway HoJo's in New York Is closed from what I
understand but it is still on the list I found on the franchiser's
website):
Connecticut:
2620 S. Main Street
Waterbury, CT 06706
(203) 755-4910
Delaware:
Northtowne Plaza
I-95 at Naamans Road
Claymont, DE 19703
(302) 791-9004
1811 Concord Pike
Wilmington, DE 19720
(302) 655-1348
Florida:
2501 N. Ocean Drive
Hollywood Beach, FL 33020
(954) 925-1674
MM102.5 US Hwy/#1 Overseas Hwy
Key Largo FL 33037
(305) 451-1400
6100 Gulf Blvd.
St. Pete Beach, FL 33706
(727) 360-4575
Maine:
336 Odlin Road
Bangor, ME 04401
(207) 947-3464
Maryland:
U.S. Route 301 & 291
Millington, MD 21651
(410) 928-3155
Massachusetts:
141 Mohawk Trail
Greenfield, MA 01301
(413) 774-2314
Michigan:
6295 W. Side Saginaw Rd
Bay City, MI 48706
(517) 686-8144
Missouri:
1130 So. Kirkwood Rd.
Kirkwood, MO 63122
(314) 965-0725
New Jersey:
1213 Boardwalk (seasonal)
Asbury Park, NJ 07712
(732) 988-3434
New York:
Canada St., Route 9
Lake George, NY 12845
(518) 668-5418
98 Saranac Avenue
Lake Placid, NY 12946
(518) 523-2241
1551 Broadway & W-46th St.
New York, NY 10036
(212) 354-1445
Pennsylvania:
I-80, PA Tpke, Route 940
White Haven, PA 18661
(570) 443-8006
Vermont:
814 Charlestown Road
Springfield, VT 05156
(802) 885-5450
Puerto Rico:
Restaurant and Ice Cream Shop
4820 Isla Verde Avenue
Carolina, Puerto Rico 00979
787-728-1300
Despite their being so few HoJos left, thet're looking for
franchisees. See http://www.franchiseassociates.com
bebopper
It was a standalone at the top of a hill on whatever the main road is
there. They used to specialize in Roast Beef and Ham, but also made
the greatest flame-broiled burgers. The roast beef and ham were real
(not like Arby's) fresh-sliced. They had an olde-England kind of
theme, where you would get a "King" roast beef or a "Prince" sizedd
ham.
The owner weighed like 300 lbs., but then shed a huge amount
and became relatively normal in size.
They had their own barbeque sauce and horseradish sauce. Best
fast-food I can remember ever eating.
- bebbopper
On 2 Apr 2003 23:35:21 -0800, quin...@excite.com (Boxall's
Regina Litman
> Does anyone remember a place named "Saxon's" in Abington ??
> It was a standalone at the top of a hill on whatever the main road is
> there. They used to specialize in Roast Beef and Ham, but also made
> the greatest flame-broiled burgers. The roast beef and ham were real
> (not like Arby's) fresh-sliced. They had an olde-England kind of
> theme, where you would get a "King" roast beef or a "Prince" sizedd
> ham.
>
> The owner weighed like 300 lbs., but then shed a huge amount
> and became relatively normal in size.
>
> They had their own barbeque sauce and horseradish sauce. Best
> fast-food I can remember ever eating.
I ate at Saxon's during my first-ever visit to the area on Memorial Day
weekend, 1979. I also had breakfast one morning that weekend at the Hot
Shoppes on Old York Road (the main road mentioned in the above post),
which is where the Barnes and Noble store is now (and which was a car
dealership in between being a restaurant and a book store). I was very
familiar with Hot Shoppes because we had many of them in the Washington
area, where I am from. The Hot Shoppes on Old York Road closed down that
same year, and I think it may have been the last of the Hot Shoppes in
the Philadelphia area. Saxon's also closed down not long after my only
visit there.
I have been trying to find out where the other Philadelphia area Hot
Shoppes were located. I have been told that there was one on North Broad
Street between Olney and the city limits, where there is now a Post
Office. I ate in a restaurant called Al E. Gator's on Route 30 in
Haverford several years ago. The layout of this restaurant reminded me
of a Hot Shoppes layout, and I wondered if this building had once housed
a Hot Shoppes. Clark DeLeon's old Scene column in the Inquirer had a
couple of references to a "Bryn Mawr Hot Shoppes", which further made me
wonder if this was really in Haverford on the Al E. Gator's site. I
think I even asked Clark once, since he grew up on that side of town,
but he wasn't able to give me an answer. Does anyone here know (1) if
the so-called "Bryn Mawr Hot Shoppes" was really on the site of what
later became Gator's in Haverford, and (2) if not, where the Bryn Mawr
Hot Shoppes actually was located?
I also ate in a restaurant once that was just east of "The Boulevard" on
Welsh Road at Blue Ridge that also had a Hot Shoppes type of layout but
was smaller. Does anyone know if there was a Hot Shoppes in that
vicinity at one time?
bebopper
Hot Shoppes was among Mariott's first venures back in the 20's ...I
think it had it's roots in A&W Root Beer..... I remember some "Hot
Shoppes Jr's" in the area, but don't recall the food being anything
extraordinary.
On Fri, 04 Apr 2003 13:14:33 -0500, Regina Litman <rsli...@infi.net>
wrote:
Mister Max
> I ate at Saxon's during my first-ever visit to the area on Memorial
> Day weekend, 1979. I also had breakfast one morning that weekend at
> the Hot Shoppes on Old York Road (the main road mentioned in the above
> post), which is where the Barnes and Noble store is now (and which was
> a car dealership in between being a restaurant and a book store). I
> was very familiar with Hot Shoppes because we had many of them in the
> Washington area, where I am from. The Hot Shoppes on Old York Road
> closed down that same year, and I think it may have been the last of
> the Hot Shoppes in the Philadelphia area. Saxon's also closed down not
> long after my only visit there.
>
> I have been trying to find out where the other Philadelphia area Hot
> Shoppes were located. I have been told that there was one on North
> Broad Street between Olney and the city limits, where there is now a
> Post Office.
Correct. Southwest corner of Broad & Stenton. For some reason, this
was a place to go with a date, the the next one was not.
There was another Hot Shoppe on the north side of Market Street at about
66th, in Upper Darby. It was a regular meeting place for my friends. A
waitress brought your food to the car on a tray that hung on the outside
of the driver's window. And I remember that somebody managed to get my
friend Gene's blue suede shoes and throw them on up one of the overhead
wires. You could also eat inside, though we never did.
I ate in a restaurant called Al E. Gator's on Route 30 in
> Haverford several years ago. The layout of this restaurant reminded me
> of a Hot Shoppes layout, and I wondered if this building had once
> housed a Hot Shoppes. Clark DeLeon's old Scene column in the Inquirer
> had a couple of references to a "Bryn Mawr Hot Shoppes", which further
> made me wonder if this was really in Haverford on the Al E. Gator's
> site. I think I even asked Clark once, since he grew up on that side
> of town, but he wasn't able to give me an answer. Does anyone here
> know (1) if the so-called "Bryn Mawr Hot Shoppes" was really on the
> site of what later became Gator's in Haverford, and (2) if not, where
> the Bryn Mawr Hot Shoppes actually was located?
I don't remember it being a Hot Shoppe. I've lived in Lower Merion
since forever and would have known any Hot Shoppe that close. It's now
Wilkie Lexus. - Max
--
MisterMax
Slideshows of Angkor Wat, Bali, Crete, Maui, Malaysia (new), Morocco,
Sicily, St Tropez, Thailand, Tour de France: http://buten.net/max/
(Yes,RemoveDoubles is part of my email address. The double letters in
my last name are not.)
Captain Sarcastic
> more than one that survived to become diners. The Michael's in Glenside
> is a former HoJo's, and there was a Howard Johnson's on City Avenue that
> also became a diner. Plus the Villanova Diner was once a Howard Johnson's.
The Villanova Diner was also a Bob's Big Boy at one point, too.
--
Remember 9-11-2001
Let's Roll!
Captain Sarcastic
news:Xns9353A8AC07525an...@216.166.71.239...
> There was another Hot Shoppe on the north side of Market Street at about
> 66th, in Upper Darby. It was a regular meeting place for my friends. A
> waitress brought your food to the car on a tray that hung on the outside
> of the driver's window. And I remember that somebody managed to get my
> friend Gene's blue suede shoes and throw them on up one of the overhead
> wires. You could also eat inside, though we never did.
This sounds similar to Speck's out in Collegeville. Though I don't think
Speck's had the drive-in stuff -- at least not recently.
ruth s.
lock myself in the bathroom and was afraid to go back for a long time...
bebopper
chicken is pretty tasty, if not healthy. If you are from that
neighborhood, perhaps you rememeber the "Big Pixie" from Landsdale ??
It was the original drive-in-girls-on-roller-skates with burgers and
onion rings joint. I later found out the owner's sons were banging
all the teenage North-Penn waitresses (from one of the ex-waitresses).
If I knew then what I know now ....
- bebopper
bebopper
I'd get over the phobia. I used to get a King roast beef, and then a
King burger, and THEN a Prince roast beef to top it off .... I would
DIE for that kind of fast food today !!
bebopper
P.S. I hope you got over the bathroom thing !!!
Boxall's Accommodation
> Hot Shoppes was among Mariott's first venures back in the 20's ...I
> think it had it's roots in A&W Root Beer..... I remember some "Hot
> Shoppes Jr's" in the area, but don't recall the food being anything
> extraordinary.
>
The last of the old Hot Shoppes closed December 3, 1999, in Marlow
Heights, Maryland. At the time Marriott announced it would replace a
restaurnat at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, Virginia, with a
"commemorative" Hot Shoppe, but I'm not sure if they ever did.
Regina Litman
I think the Marlow Heights Hot Shoppes was actually a Hot Shoppes
cafeteria. The Hot Shoppes cafeterias were usually found in shopping
malls (or their precessors, shopping plazas). The Marlow Heights one was
actually an extra-long strip shopping center that was anchored by a
major department store, Hecht's, so it had the characteristics of a
mall/plaza. The Hot Shoppes cafeterias that were in malls were
eventually done in by the advent of food courts, which offered even
greater variety of food selections (although patrons of food courts who
want items from different places have to wait in multiple lines, while
they only had to wait in one to get food - and maybe a separate one at
the end to pay - in the cafeteria). A few Hot Shoppes cafeterias, such
as the one in Friendship Heights, just over the Maryland line from DC in
the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area, were in office building neighborhoods and
probably did most of their business at lunch time during the week.
As for the table-service Hot Shoppes, I think the last one to go was the
one on Rockville Pike in front of a shopping center called Congressional
Plaza. This was in the early 1990s, I think.
The last two table-service Hot Shoppes to open in the Washington
metropolitan area were on Greenbelt Road, in front of the Beltway Plaza
Shopping Center, and on New Hampshire Avenue in Hillandale, just outside
the Beltway. Both opened on June 15, 1966. When several of the Hot
Shoppes were converted to Big Boys several years later, the one in
Hillandale definitely was one of these, and I think the Greenbelt Road
one was, too. Then, some of the Washington area Big Boys became
Shoney's, and the Hillandale one went that route, too. It was a Shoney's
the last time I looked, which may have been a year ago. Some of the
Shoney's in the Washington area had been closed (and two of them on
Maryland Route 355 in Montgomery County became IHOPs), but this one had
remained a Shoney's.
Sorry to take this away from Philadelphia, but I got carried away. I
have added a group, dc.food, which may or may not exist, to the posted
groups.
Me
bebopper <bebo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Does anyone remember a place named "Saxon's" in Abington ??
> It was a standalone at the top of a hill on whatever the main road is
> there. They used to specialize in Roast Beef and Ham, but also made
> the greatest flame-broiled burgers. The roast beef and ham were real
> (not like Arby's) fresh-sliced. They had an olde-England kind of
> theme, where you would get a "King" roast beef or a "Prince" sizedd
> ham.
Although I remember it, I never ate at Saxon's. I did drive by it many
times. It was always one of those "we should eat there places" that we
never got around to trying.
Me
Regina Litman <rsli...@infi.net> wrote:
>
> I ate at Saxon's during my first-ever visit to the area on Memorial Day
> weekend, 1979. I also had breakfast one morning that weekend at the Hot
> Shoppes on Old York Road (the main road mentioned in the above post),
> which is where the Barnes and Noble store is now (and which was a car
> dealership in between being a restaurant and a book store). I was very
> familiar with Hot Shoppes because we had many of them in the Washington
> area, where I am from. The Hot Shoppes on Old York Road closed down that
> same year, and I think it may have been the last of the Hot Shoppes in
> the Philadelphia area. Saxon's also closed down not long after my only
> visit there.
>
> I have been trying to find out where the other Philadelphia area Hot
> Shoppes were located.
There used to be a Hot Shoppes cafeteria in the Neshamini Mall. This
restaurant was located in what is now that mall's the food court area.
My parents used to take my sister and me there for dinner at least once
a month for many years. My favorite meal there was the open face hot
roast beef sandwhich was mashed potatoes. Wow! That was good!
Regina Litman
>
> There used to be a Hot Shoppes cafeteria in the Neshamini Mall. This
> restaurant was located in what is now that mall's the food court area.
> My parents used to take my sister and me there for dinner at least once
> a month for many years. My favorite meal there was the open face hot
> roast beef sandwhich was mashed potatoes. Wow! That was good!
Thanks for letting me know. I wish it had still been there in the 1990s,
when I worked in the vicinity of this mall and sometimes went there for
lunch in the food court. Although I had some food court favorites over
the years, I may have preferred the Hot Shoppes Cafeteria.
In fact, my current commute takes me past the exit on Route 1 for
Neshaminy Mall, and sometimes if I'm going somewhere after work and have
to grab a quick dinner, I stop in the food court there. I think I'd
still prefer going to a Hot Shoppes Cafeteria.
bebopper
Pity ... They really flame-broiled the burgers (and that was in the
days they didn't have to cook them to death to be street-legal)
They probably tasted what a Sirloiner would have neem like on your
backyard grill. Too bad you didn't freeze a few cases ....
- bebopper
Jeffrey Varnado
on your ability to remember exact dates, well I am the same way. I ate
at DEL TACO in Paris, Texas on 10/31/80 (the people working the
drive-thru window were wearing Halloween costumes), I went through the
drive-through at Burger King the day Ronald Reagan was shot (March 1981)
and ordered one of the chicken sandwiches; I was at a 7/11 convenience
store when the first Gulf War started on 1/16/91, I had just come home
from Whatabruger when O.J. Simpson did his Bronco ride down the
California freeways (Friday night late May 1994).
lawl...@hotmail.com
thepron...@gmail.com
neeso...@gmail.com
Same location
tomgar...@gmail.com
odabas...@gmail.com
flmdr...@gmail.com
My mother loved crab cakes (I do too but not as much as my mom) After taking my mother there, she always wanted to go out there. Only 1 of many great examples, bluefish dinner amongst others a wonderful.
Great breakfast day or night; great hamburgers,& so on.
The owner took great care of creative decor too. Later, she did have some problems with some youngercustomers messing ..decor a bit.The owner was from Greece. She went back yearly for long visits. As I remember, she had either land or a place there.
When we talked last couple of times, she seemed somewhat discouraged but ok. Then she seemed somewhat worn or tired but still a lovely lady as always.
I missed goingthere for several mos. But, in May my mother, aunt, stepfather & I there for my birthday dinner. There was a new owner! It was almost entirely different. It was really the basic bones of the old place. They had just recently bought it & had not really set up. I bore thru it. Nothing on menu I really wanted. They had put in a salad bar - it was empty. I stopped in 1 time after & it was much the same, so I left. They closed after a short time A "family restaurant" was there for quite sometime but never open when I was there. Last time I passed there, another diner was there but I didn't have a way with friend driving or time to stop .
> 1-1/2 yrs ago now, since been that way
1 of the great eating places. :) ;) that I sorely miss original that was there for yrs.:'-(