A TGI Fridays is pictured in 2020 in Queens in New York Metropolis, when the streets had been empty because of the coronavirus.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Photographs
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Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Photographs
The father or mother firm of TGI Fridays, the informal eating chain, has filed for chapter, the corporate mentioned, because it explores a long-term survival plan for the troubled enterprise.
The corporate mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic was the “major driver of our monetary challenges” and that the Chapter 11 chapter course of will permit it to “discover strategic options.”
“The subsequent steps introduced at this time are tough however mandatory actions to guard the perfect pursuits of our stakeholders, together with our home and worldwide franchisees and our valued group members world wide,” Rohit Manocha, the manager chairman of TGI Fridays Inc., mentioned in a statement on Saturday.
The pandemic pressured in-person eating institutions to shut or pivot their enterprise fashions, and plenty of struggled to get better. In the meantime, brisker, sooner and cheaper 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 Red Lobster, Big Lots, Tupperware, Express and Joann.
There are 163 TGI Fridays within the U.S., down from 237 eating places in January, after the chain announced the closure of 36 locations that month. Since then, the corporate has quietly shut down dozens extra.
The chapter impacts TGI Fridays’ father or mother firm, which operates 39 eating places, and never its different places that are run by franchisees. The corporate has secured financing to maintain all of its places open and working as typical in the course of the chapter course of.
