Ramada

In 1954 a group of investors opened an inn in Flagstaff, Arizona, the first in a series of motor hotels to be opened by the group. Five years later, the chain was named Ramada, meaning "a shaded resting place" in Spanish.Today Ramada, which has been owned by Cendant Corp. since 1997, operates hotels throughout the United States. The company is comprised of three segments, Ramada Inns, Ramada Limiteds and Ramada Plaza Hotels, serving value-conscious and mid-market travelers.

Ramada opened its first hotel – a 60-room facility – on U.S. Route 66 at Flagstaff, Arizona in 1954 and set up its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, where the chain built the Sahara Hotel on North 1st Street downtown in 1956 (which later became the Ramada Inn Downtown) and a 300-room Ramada Inn in the 3800 block of East Van Buren in 1958 that would become the chain's flagship property and headquarters. Mr. Isbell, like his contemporary, Kemmons Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn hotel chain, devised the idea of building and operating a chain of roadside motor hotels while he was on a cross-country trip with his wife, Ingrid, and their three children. On that trip, Isbell noted the substandard quality of roadside motor courts along US highways at the time. He saw the possibility in the developing market for a chain of roadside motor hotels conveniently located along major highways which would provide lodgings with hotel-like quality at near-motel rates plus amenities such as TV, air conditioning, swimming pools, and on-premises restaurants.

Ramada developed a chain of restaurants, which were located inside the hotels, similar to the Howard Johnson's restaurants. Ramada operated them under various names including Uncle Ben's Kitchen, Ramada Pancake Cottage, and Chez Bon, as well as other names used by individual franchises. The company-owned Ramada restaurants became defunct in 1990, though the franchised hotels still include on-premises restaurants.