By Paul Post
Jon LaRock’s restaurant odyssey has taken him from a South Glens Falls pizza shop to America’s last orange-roofed Howard Johnson’s, which he ran in Lake George before its closure several years ago.
“I started out at Ernie Jacobie’s (currently Humbuggs) at the corner of Gansevoort and Bluebird roads in South Glens Falls,” he said. “I used to pump gas for him across the street. Then one day he said, Do you want to start doing dishes? I said, Sure! Then I got into cooking. I was 15 years old.”
Last spring, with more than a half-century of experience under his belt, LaRock opened The Diner House at the corner of Main and Beech streets in Hudson Falls. Open daily, it specializes in breakfast and lunch menu items.
“This goulash is delicious,” Charles Mahay, a regular customer, said between bites. “And he makes a great hot turkey sandwich. I’ve had all the breakfast choices. I like them all. The Lumberjack special is my favorite.”
LaRock said he spent $5,000 to renovate the small space, a former aquarium shop. Now, after developing a local customer base, he plans on moving to a larger site, the former Seeley’s Restaurant, just down the road on Upper Broadway in Fort Edward.
If all goes well, he hopes to move in this fall.
“I think it will be a good spot,” LaRock said. “It’s across the street from the (Fort Hudson) nursing home and next to Dollar General. I plan to start serving dinners again. We’d be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days per week.”
Downtown Fort Edward has suddenly become somewhat of a mecca for people in search of good food.
The long-standing Ye Old Fort Diner and Mamma’s Café were joined earlier this year by Kerrie’s Diner, whose owner Kerrie Leclair moved into 70 Broadway after closing the former Northway Diner in Queensbury.
More recently, Grumbellies Eatery, previously located in Fort Ann, renovated and took over a former branch bank building at 159 Broadway, in front of Fort Edward Yacht Basin.
The former Seeley’s building is about a mile from downtown, giving LaRock a slightly different market to draw from.
“I’d love to have a restaurant open across the street because it brings more people to that area,” he said. “The more the merrier. I love competition. It’s great.”
After learning the restaurant business from Jacobie, and full of entrepreneurial ambition, LaRock opened his own eatery, Victoria’s, near Lamplighter Acres in Moreau. Next came a pizza shop at Exit 17, which he later sold to Cumberland Farms.
LaRock then went to work for the DeSantis family, which owned several Howard Johnson’s restaurants from Clifton Park to Lake George. “Wherever they got busy I ran and helped them out,” he said.
In 2015, he leased and reopened the Lake George Howard Johnson’s, which had closed four years earlier. The company’s restaurants, with orange roofs and blue spires, were popular with post-World War II travelers across America during the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
But competition from fast-food and other sit-down restaurants led to their demise. The Lake George Howard Johnson’s closed for good in June 2022 and is now home to Sushi Wa.
LaRock could retire if he wanted, but has no such plans.
“You run into a lot of nice people in the restaurant business,” he said. “That’s why I’m doing it. What are you going to do when you retire, sit home and watch TV all day? I’m not ready for that. I’m a go-er. Go, go, go!”