Howard Johnson's Landmark: May/June 1972, page 2
 
Wayland, Massachusetts -- 55 Boston Post Rd (Rt 20)
 

Howard D. Johnson acquired the Wayland Red Coach Grill Restaurant in the middle 1930s and created a chain of upscale luxury dining facilities based on its pre-Revolutionary American post house theme. Similar to an English tavern, the circa 1934 restaurant featured a red-shingled roof and log siding exterior. Inside, patrons were treated to two massive fieldstone fireplaces and accurate reproduction Colonial fixtures and furnishings. Select cuts of meat, lobster, seafoods, and other choice entrees as well as fine wines were offered on the menu.

Nearly completely destroyed by fire in January of 1976, the Howard Johnson Company rebuilt Wayland to rave reviews when it reopened on April 4, 1972. A fixture in Wayland, the Red Coach had become The Coach Grill by 2005.
 
 
Above: Hostess Ester Folks, waitresses Georgiana Sullivan and Lorraine Bassette go back to work in the rebuilt Red Coach.
 
 
Postcard circa 1960s: Courtesy of Dan Donahue
 
 
 
 
American Restaurant Magazine: September, 1957, page 98
 
Boston, Massachusetts -- 43 Stanhope St
 
Believed to be the Red Coach on Stanhope Street in Boston or perhaps the Coach in Framingham, the photograph above shows Red Coach management and WBZ radio employees posing in front of a horse drawn coach which was the logo for the chain. The station ran programs which were sponsored by Red Coach Grills, and featured "an audio identity of a special horse-and-carriage and trumpet sound effect introducing all spot announcements and a weekly program..." The advertising was said to have increased business volume for the chain.
 
 
 
 
Postcard circa 1960s
 
Saugus, Massachusetts -- Newburyport Tpke
 
 
 
 
Howard Johnson's Annual Report: 1961, page 10
 
Middleboro, Massachusetts -- Rts 44 & 18 (Rotary Circle)
 

Built near a busy traffic circle or rotary as they are fondly called in Massachusetts, the Middleboro Coach was near the Middleboro Howard Johnson's Restaurant. Rebuilt and reopened in 1961, the original building suffered a fire. Initially the Restaurant featured a Talley Ho Lounge, but later the Company converted it into the Lightfoot's Discotheque concept which had been successfully tested at the Braintree Red Coach.

After Imperial Group Ltd. (then the Howard Johnson Company's parent) pulled the plug on the Red Coach Grill chain in the early 1980s, many of the locations like Middleboro became El Torito's. After a decade serving Mexican fare, the former Red Coach was converted into the Fireside Grille.
 
Postcard circa 1970s
 
 
Photograph February 2007: Courtesy of Gary Keith
 
 
 
 
Postcard circa 1960s
 
Hyannis, Massachusetts -- 545 Iyannough Rd (Airport Rotary)
 
One of the older locations, Hyannis may have originally been the site, or at least near the site of an early Howard Johnson's stand. By the 2000s the building's exterior remained remarkably intact even as it had been radically remodeled to house a Chili's.
 
Photographs circa 1970s & 2000s: Courtesy of Dan Donahue