Citizens and visitors alike once enjoyed the tasty treats offered by Clemson's Howard Johnson's Restaurant! No doubt the location employed many people over the years, and their lives were intertwined with the Restaurant's fortunes. It may have even opened as a licensed unit, with its owner having high hopes that its would provide him with prosperity and a retirement. And if it was not a franchise, its manager as well as his employees depended on the location for their livelihoods.

An early stand-alone location to feature the "T" style design (see prototypes built in Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami), Clemson opened in about 1965. It lasted as a HoJo's for a little more than a decade.

November 24, 1999
Not knowing that there had been a Howard Johnson's in Clemson, I passed it and circled back to check it out. I wondered, where was the Motor Lodge--seems like there ought to have been one, but there was just an old no-name motel nearby (Please do not confuse the ANDERSON Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge and Restaurant with the stand-alone Clemson Restaurant location). Fall was upon it with winter approaching. A handwritten sign on the abandoned Restaurant offered an "All U Can Eat Buffet," but another claimed that it was closed for remodeling. However it was never to be remodeled again and it last housed the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant. Finally the venerable Howard Johnson's was demolished some time after my 1999 visit...