Hot Shoppes, Inc.

Marriott Corporation was a hospitality company that operated from 1927 until 1993, founded by J. Willard Marriott and Frank Kimball as Hot Shoppes, Inc. In 1957, Marriott Corporation opened its first hotel in Arlington County, Virginia, United States as the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel (demolished 1990). Marriott Corporation's first international property was opened in Acapulco, Mexico in 1969. Hot Shoppes became Marriott Corporation in 1967, which subsequently split into Marriott International, Inc. and Host Marriott Corporation in 1993.

J. Willard Marriott, who had moved away with his business partner Hugh Colton and his wife Alice from Utah to Washington, D.C., started the brand new startup company in 1927, when he operated a curbside food stand selling A&W Root Beer in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington at 14th Street and Park Road NW. He would later rename the food stand The Hot Shoppe, adding Mexican food items to the menu. Marriott's business expanded to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1934, shortly after which the company started its food services division. During Second World War, the business expanded to include the management of food services in defense plants and government buildings, such as the U.S. Treasury. Then in the 1950s, Hot Shoppes, Inc. started providing food services to public schools and to in 1955, a contract which they held for 35 years.