Courtesy of Aimee Seavey/Yankee Magazine Howard Johnson's classic "tendersweet fried clams" were among the most popular menu items in pretty much every HoJos location – including Nashua's second one at Exit 5.

Once again I must tip my proverbial hat to my friends over at the New England Historical Society, whose most recent online newsletter conjured some fond memories – and one not-so-fond memory that I nevertheless look back upon with a little bit of nostalgia.

We of a certain age often reminisce over long-gone favorite eateries of our youth, such as the Howdy’s that occupied the present site of the Temple Street Diner, the Kemp’s that sat about where Palmer’s cleaners is now, perhaps the “flagship” Santoro’s location on Walnut Street just down from West Pearl.

Or maybe Dan’s Drive-in, if you didn’t mind the long journey out west, or you could opt for a somewhat shorter drive over the bridge to The Meadows in Hudson.

Others will come to mind. The “most missed” of all, of course, depends on who you ask. But I don’t think anyone can say they don’t lament, at least to some degree, the demise of a pair of iconic Nashua eateries that happened to have orange roofs with aqua cupolas.

The folks at NEHS featured the history of America’s beloved Howard Johnson’s in their latest issue, a good read that spurred a few “I was there when … “ memories representing a range of experiences.

Courtesy of Aimee Seavey/Yankee Magazine Nashua's second Howard Johnson's, the one at Exit 5, looked exactly like this one in Bangor, Maine, which was New England's last HoJo's. It closed in 2016.

Some of the more humorous (at least now, not so much then) involve this little game some of us occasionally played. The object was to see who could sneak out undetected after leaving their tab on the table – unpaid.

We weren’t hardened criminals, of course, just a bunch of kids pulling pranks for fun. Or so we told ourselves. After awhile it was almost a relief to get caught; when that happened we’d feign shock: “Oh no, really? Jeez, I’m sorry, I guess I forgot.”

The thing about HoJo’s restaurants is that the vast majority – including both of Nashua’s – had at least a couple of function rooms where service clubs held their weekly meetings.

Those same rooms were booked pretty much every night come the holidays, in an era when companies hosted holiday parties that were frequently called “Christmas parties” without ruffling a single feather.

Nashua’s first HoJo’s was, of course, the one on Daniel Webster Highway, which opened its doors in the mid-1930s and did so well that the management built an addition to the south side of the building then took out an ad in the Telegraph “extending to the people of Nashua and vicinity a personal invitation to inspect our new addition.”

Courtesy of NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY This classic Howard Johnson's sign, based on the nursery rhyme "Simple Simon Meets a Pieman," was recognized across the nation in the restaurant chain's heyday.

The ads always bore the names of the managers – W. U. Hutchinson and J. Arthur Trenholm.

HoJo’s came to Nashua just a decade or so after Howard Deering Johnson founded his future restaurant empire as a small soda fountain in Wollaston, Mass., in 1925.

His chief focus, according to the NEHS feature, was on his ice cream, which prompted him to persuade a man he knew to build a dairy bar/ice cream stand in the Cape Cod town of Orleans – and to name it Howard Johnson’s.

“Visitors to the beaches of Cape Cod were thrilled to see the familiar name from the South Shore. The new outlet was a success,” according to the feature.

Johnson was not only an astute businessman, he was a visionary, basing many decisions on his bet that new, and better roads would fuel Americans’ love of automobile travel – and those travelers, of course, would all get hungry sooner or later.

Courtesy of NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY This vintage image depicts the dairy bar at the former Howard Johnson's in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, but they all looked so similar it could be almost any Howard Johnson's in the chain's mid-20th-century heyday.

About those “Tendersweet” fried clams: They were actually the invention of the Soffron Brothers of Ipswich, Mass., rather than Johnson himself.

But it was Johnson who took the brothers’ invention and ran with it: He bought the idea from them and, in what we now call a win-win, the brothers continued processing the clams exclusively for Johnson’s restaurants.

As for my “not-so-fond” HoJo’s memory: You know how you can remember, down to every little detail, some life experiences, but can barely recall other, more significant events?

This one of mine involves those luscious, fried-in-creamery-butter HoJo’s hot dogs, mom’s after-dinner cigarette over lukewarm, after-dinner coffee, my grandmother excusing herself for a restroom trip, and little sister dawdling over the final bites of her mustard-only hot dog.

It involves a man I didn’t know getting my mother’s attention, her going over and speaking to him, and returning to the table telling us kids to put on our coats because were leaving, then telling my grandmother: “A car just hit our house and caused quite a bit of damage.”

A July 1937 Nashua Telegraph ad for Howard Johnson's offered a tenderloin steak Sunday dinner for a buck, but the "delicious frankfurts roasted in pure creamery butter" may have been more popular.

Stay tuned for Part II in this space next week, including my, my sister’s and my grandmother’s reactions, and why Pop wasn’t dining with us that evening,

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Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

Courtesy of NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY Howard Johnson, the man behind the restaurant chain that became synonymous with mid-20th-century America, built two of his restaurants in Nashua.

This Telegraph ad, which ran in November 1936, referred to Howard Johnson's Daniel Webster Grille, which boasted an "electric kitchen," air conditioning, full-course dinners, "frankforts," and of course 28 flavors of ice cream. Note the ditty at top left.

Courtesy of New England Historical Society This Howard Johnson's restaurant, the location of which is unknown, bears a striking resemblance to Nashua's first one on Daniel Webster Highway.

Dean Shalhoup

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