John Willard Marriott born on September 1900, and at age 26 with his new bride Alice, started a new business with the opening of a nine-seat root beer stand (A&W Root Bear) at Washington, D.C. With addition of Mexican food for cooler autumn months, they had converted the root beer stand into a restaurant called ‘The Hot Shoppe’. Later they diversified their business into hospitality and with it came the change of name to Marriott Corporation (became Marriott International in 1993) in 1967 and now the company has more than 4,000 properties in over 80 countries.
