Hotels and Hot Food: Shoney’s Inn in Vienna

By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA

When Offbeat NOVA first began in the quarantine summer of 2020 (remember those days?), I came up with a list of almost one hundred individual items, events, and places in Northern Virginia to write about. Many of those items off that initial list have made it to the blog and on our YouTube page. Still, the majority of them are unfinished and waiting in the hopper to become a reality. 

To be honest, I have legitimately slid in writing about these topics. It’s not because I don’t want to, I assure you. Work has been very busy, and what little time is left is carved out for some family time, especially with our daughter. Alongside other side jobs, I have to make a little extra money (a necessity as a millennial living in Northern Virginia), I have neglected writing about these topics I enjoy researching and learning about. 

For that, I am sorry. But it will get better. 

Diving back into that initial list of nearly one hundred items to write about, one stuck out — a small note about something called a “Shoney’s Inn.” I remember writing it down after researching something that came up on the Fairfax Underground message board (there is a specific thread called “Old pictures of Fairfax county, love em!” That is a treasure trove of offbeat info on the Northern Virginia area). In that November 2019 post, a poster bystander by the name of “Andy Ratlips” posted an image of a Shoney’s Inn from the Fairfax County Public Library. The library was looking for help figuring out where the hotel existed. On the back of the picture, there was a notation for “Route 1.” The poster, Mr. Ratlips, posited that it could be from the Tysons area. A few posts down from the message board post, somebody quickly solved the mystery. 

A user named “Blanch” posted that the hotel looked like a Comfort Inn off Spring Hill Road near Tyson’s Corner Mall.

Before I found out about the retail and commercial history of this specific location in Vienna, I had to figure out what the hell a “Shoney’s Inn” was. I remember spending many weekends eating Sysco-brand chicken fingers or watery eggs and soggy hash browns from the Shoney’s buffet. I can only imagine staying at a Shoney’s Inn to be akin to sleeping in the hotel at South of the Border in South Carolina. 

Shoney’s began as an offshoot of Big Boy franchisee Alex Schoenbaum. He renamed his Charleston, West Virginia, restaurants the Parkette Drive-In to resemble his name, Shoney’s, in June 1954. Over time, the family casual restaurant grew in popularity, particularly in the southern United States. 

In 1975, drawing off the success of the restaurant, Shoney’s began a chan of motels called “Shoney’s Inn.” They were all sold off in 1991, but continued to collect off the royalties of the name – they were rebranded between 2002 and 2006, or those that remained as GustHouse, headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee. At the time of the purchase and remand in 2002, there were seventy-three properties of GuestHouse International Franchise Systems in operation, with twelve currently under development as of 2006. The location in Vienna near Tyson’s Corner was not one of them at the time. 

So, what about this specific location? How did it become a Shoney’s Inn and how did it become the hotel it is today? 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information about the Shoney’s Inn in Vienna, located at 1587 Spring Hill Road. The internet mocks me with their scant details. One tour book from 1987 lists the Shoney’s Inn address with brief details on location and pricing. At the time, you could get a single bed (one person) for $52. A two-person/two-bedroom option would cost you five bucks more. The original property boasted 251 units, complete with cable television, phone, and a nearby pool sandwiched in between the adjacent Shoney’s restaurant and the rooms. 

At some point in the early 1990s, the Shoney’s and its hotel closed and became the Comfort Inn. The 1991 Shoney’s Inn location does not include the one in Vienna (there was five total, with the nearest in Manassas off Phoenix Drive — now a Super 8). The building where the Shoney’s was located (in front of the pool and hotel) became several different things in its lifetime. Business records indicate it was a toy and manufacturing business called “Thumbelina’s” in 2000, run by an individual named Richard Kibbey. After that, it was a sub-par Fuddruckers for several years before closing in 2010. My favorite Yelp review comes from “Judith L.” Back in 2009 a year before it closed: 

“Now that I think about it… I think the last visit was the only one where I wasn’t disappointed by something. WHY THE HECK DO I KEEP COMING HERE?”

Yelp for Fuddruckers in Vienna (YELP)

The hotel itself was a Comfort Inn from the early 1990s until 2007, if the Internet Archive’s record of the hotel’s website is any indication. The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C. gave the hotel a rating of 65 out of 100. 

Today, the entire complex houses the Quality Inn. The reviews are modest, oscillating between 3 and 3.5 stars on various hotel rating sites and Facebook. Looking at it today, you can still see some architectural evidence of the original Shoney’s Inn establishment. You can still see that the staircase from the original photo lines up perfectly just underneath where the “Shoney’s Inn” used to be. A blue awning now takes its place above the staircase to keep guests dry as they walk up to their rooms. The roof and brick structure are also similar, and the parking lot remains unchanged over the years. The original Shoney’s restaurant location has seen the most considerable change over the years, with the paint scheme now yellow and red instead of white. A lawn care crew looked quizzically at me from a short distance as I got out to take pictures of what looked like a mundane two-star hotel in proximity to Tyson’s Corner. 

Shoney’s is still around today, albeit in small numbers in the South despite filing for Chapter 11 in 2000. Shoney’s wasn’t the first business to incorporate lodging with a well-known brand of the restaurant. Howard Johnson built the model previously and made it a marketable business model. Although Shoney’s never had the success that Howard Johnson did, there are still more Shoney’s than Howard Johnson eateries around today (only one Howard Johnson remains in New York State). 

Although I couldn’t gather much information on this particular establishment, I wanted to document it for posterity. I find repurposed buildings from the commercial and hospitality industry fascinating. The fact that this one location has been three hotels and at least two separate restaurants stands as a testament to the staying power of the area.