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Marriott family portrait 1943

Marriott family portrait 1943

Meet Our Founders

JWM Sr Alice by Hot Shoppe ca mid1960s

J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott

In 1927, J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott opened the nine-seat root beer stand that grew into the Hot Shoppes restaurant chain and evolved into Marriott International. They built the business on core values that remain embedded in the hospitality company’s culture today.

Read J. Willard Marriott’s full bio Read Alice Sheets Marriott’s full bio

Bill Marriott

Raised in the family business, J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr. developed an early passion for hospitality. In his more than 60 years at the company’s helm, he built Marriott into a global lodging company with more than 8,000 properties spanning 139 countries and territories.

Read J.W. Marriott, Jr.’s full bio

Highlights

1927
Taking care of customers at the first Hot Shoppe at 14th Street and Kenyon in Washington, D.C., 1927.
1936
Car hops, dubbed “curbers” and “curbettes,” provide car-side service at the Connecticut Avenue Hot Shoppe in Washington, D.C., 1936.
1941
Soldiers and their dates dine at a Hot Shoppe, a popular restaurant chain in the Washington, D.C. area, 1941.
1956
J. Willard Marriott tests propeller-side service at the 14th Street Bridge Hot Shoppe in Washington, D.C., 1956.
1952
Hot Shoppes drive-ins allowed customers to enjoy curbside dining in their cars, ca. 1955.
1957
Bill Marriott, Jr. provides personalized directions to guests at the new Twin Bridges Marriott Motor Hotel, 1957.
1968
Woodrow Marriott celebrates the Junior Hot Shoppe in Philadelphia’s Progress Plaza, the first African American owned shopping center in the United States, with members of the Plaza’s and the Shoppe’s management teams, 1968.
1968
J.W. and Alice Marriott, along with their son, company President J.W. Marriott, Jr., stroll the grounds of the newly acquired Camelback Inn near Phoenix, Arizona, 1968.
1982
The Cairo Marriott Hotel and Omar Al Khayyam Casino was the first of Marriott’s African hotels, which opened in 1982. The central section had been the Gezirah Palace, originally built in 1869.