Location Waycross, Georgia, United States Regions East Coast, Southern US Gender Male
Bill Darden was born in 1919, which meant that he was too young to enjoy the prosperity of the "Roaring Twenties," but just the right age to be emotionally scarred by the economic ravages of the Great Depression. This hit his native South especially hard. Nevertheless, he found a way to get buy in that era. In 1938, when he was just 19
years old, he opened a luncheonette in his hometown of Waycross, Georgia.
At the time, fast food was not pervasive. Lunch counters, diners, soda fountains and candy stores were then seen as the way to go. Darden took this path, naming his luncheonette The Green Frog, and advertising it as "Service with a Hop." And he defied the laws of his Southern State by refusing to segregate his customers based on race.
The Green Frog became successful enough that Darden was able to invest in Howard Johnson restaurants and hotels, mostly in Florida. With the growth of the automotive and air-conditioning industries making life in the South much more convenient, real estate boomed, especially in Florida, and that State's residents and tourists needed places to drive their cars to and eat. This made the once-struggling Georgia luncheonette owner one of the richest men in Florida.
