A TGI Fridays is pictured in 2020 in Queens in New York Town, when the streets have been empty because of the coronavirus.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Pictures
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Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Pictures
The mother or father corporate of TGI Fridays, the informal eating chain, has filed for chapter, the corporate mentioned, because it explores a long-term survival plan for the bothered industry.
The corporate mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic was once the “number one driving force of our monetary demanding situations” and that the Bankruptcy 11 chapter procedure will permit it to “discover strategic choices.”
“The following steps introduced as of late are tough however essential movements to offer protection to the most productive pursuits of our stakeholders, together with our home and global franchisees and our valued crew participants world wide,” Rohit Manocha, the manager chairman of TGI Fridays Inc., mentioned in a remark on Saturday. The pandemic compelled in-person eating institutions to near or pivot their industry fashions, and plenty of struggled to recuperate. In the meantime, more energizing, sooner and less expensive choices, like Shake Shack, got here for informal eating chains’ lunch.
TGI Fridays joins a number of big-name chains in submitting for chapter this yr, together with Purple Lobster, Giant A lot, Tupperware, Categorical and Joann.
There are 163 TGI Fridays within the U.S., down from 237 eating places in January, after the chain introduced the closure of 36 places that month. Since then, the corporate has quietly close down dozens extra. The chapter impacts TGI Fridays’ mother or father corporate, which operates 39 eating places, and no longer its different places that are run by means of franchisees. The corporate has secured financing to stay all of its places open and working as same old right through the chapter procedure.
