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| Photos ca. 1960s: Kummerlowe Archive |
As its own chain within the Holiday Inn empire, AMI was instrumental in helping HI evolve and develop methods for greater efficiency enhancing guest service as well as profitability. However Holiday Inn's inflexible franchising rules came to hinder American Motor Inn's operations by the middle 1970s and AMI was forced to file suite. The particular case was eventually settled but led to changes which forever changed franchising laws in the United States. Both AMI and the Holiday Inn brand itself were sold or absorbed by other entities (note that AMI was acquired in 1984 by one of Howard Johnson's destroyers, Prime Motor Inns!). |
Above
& Lower: Typical rooms at AMI's Holiday Inn properties
during the 1960s. |
Below:
Merry maids in training dressed in nursely white with red accents
(Oh please, how many telephone handsets were actually cleaned!).
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Food
service was viewed as an integral part of any respectable hospitality
operation and required at Holiday Inn properties. Thus food and
beverage training were important in any hospitality school's curriculum.
American Motor Inns' many properties offered a variety of restaurant
options. Like its Roanoke site which featured an eatery called
Archie's House of Beef, many were local or regional favorites.
Probably the best known were their Billy Budd Restaurants in the
eastern United States. |
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Higher:
Informal coffee shop |
Above
& Below: Formal dining areas (note the Great Sign
patch on the proud employee's blazer). |
Lower:
Profit maker--the Holiday Inn bar! |
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