Three TGIFridays Mysteriously Close, No One Knows Why
Three TGIFridays in California have mysteriously closed, says the SF Chronicle. Employees are stunned.
"We went from contributors to liabilities in about one minute. I guess that is the new way," said Cesar Arguello, who had been bar manager at the San Bruno restaurant until he and several dozen fellow workers were handed their final paychecks Tuesday morning.
One of the employees interviewed by the paper had worked at the restaurant for 25 years. The circumstances of the closures are mysterious — because they weren't authorized by TGI Friday's corporate.
Calls to CNL's Florida office were not returned. The three closed locations were franchises of TGI Friday's, a restaurant concept that began in New York in 1965 and has spread to more than 900 locations in 62 countries. The franchise is ultimately owned by Carlson Cos. of Minnetonka, Minn.
"These closures were not authorized by TGI Friday's Inc. and we are still in the process of gathering facts," a Carlson spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Business was apparently down only about 5%.
3 TGI Friday's restaurants close without notice [SFGate] (Thanks, Glenn!)
(Photo: gavdana )
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I believe the owners all had an epiphany that selling an entree with 1/2 the serving should also sell at 1/2 the price (not $1-$2 less), and decided based on moral fiber, they could no longer run such an establishment.
And this, among many other reasons, are why i am always wary of franchises...
Its like they are a part of the company, but without any of the restrictions or accountability
Several years ago, every single Burger King in Columbia, SC suddenly closed, around 4-5 locations. In that case, the franchise owner was having a dispute with corporate over how much he owed them, and he decided to close all of them instead of paying.(From all accounts I read/heard, he had been shorting them, so it wasn't a case of corporate greed) I wonder if there's a similar dispute here.
Who eats at Fridays anymore? The food is terrible and overpriced. If I want a dinner that comes off the back of a Cisco truck I will order from them directly and not pay someone to mark it up 100% just for putting it on a plate and giving it a snazzy name.
A similar thing happened with Ground Round in MA a few years back. One day they were just closed, no warning or nothing. Maybe it's easier that way? Prevents people from stealing shit on the way out maybe.
Sorta related, but funny...
There were only two Quiznos within driving distance from where I live. One was next to a nail salon, and stunk of nail polish. They eventually closed.
The second one, I went there one day to find a posting in the window from the landlord that the locks were changed because they didn't pay their rent. That is rather embarassing for them.
There are not three TGIFs in San Bruno. One of the closed restaurants was in San Bruno, one in Cupertino and one in San Mateo. This was all in the FIRST PARAGRAPH of the Chron story. These are all entirely different cities in the south SF bay.
The Cupertino one concerns me particularly because it's right in that commercial knot near Apple; if it's not busy enough to stay open, things are really bad.
@310Drew: Noone is going to make you eat there, don't worry.
Whether or not you like an establishment or not is really irrelevant to this posting. People lost their jobs with zero explanation or notice. One person worked there for 25 years! That is where the focus should be.
@310Drew: I eat at TGIFriday's with my family quite regularly. Their prices have dropped and in most cases the food is pretty good--the fish and chips are a joke though. Now that Pennsylvania is smoke-free it's even better.
On Mondays and Tuesdays kids eat free so the three of us can enjoy a decent meal for under $30.
@cynical_bastard: What kind of accountability are you asking for? If they were losing money, it makes sense to close the restaurants. If the owner went belly up, and the restaurants are good, a new investor will probably buy them up.
@Saboth: Actually I think it's a nice way of promoting cutting back on portion size which is out of control at most restaurants and $1-$2 is probably pretty close to how much they save on food. It still takes the same amount of labor to serve you.
@The Name's Ash78, Housewares: Well that does explain the lousy service that I get every time I went to TGIF
@mythago: I was going to say-- my first thought upon reading this post was, "Why in the world do there need to be THREE TGIFridays in one town!?!?"
That's really awful for the employees, though. Happy holidays indeed :(
I thought this was expected... Our local TGIFs in South Portland, Maine closed about a year ago, aprox. "Employees were stunned" there as well. You'd think other restaurants in this chain would have known, especially since the food there is so hideous.
A little bird told me that Friday's has issues with store managers skimming off the top.
@Hooray4Zoidberg: I think I heard that the one in my parents' town closed in the middle of the day, with people still eating there.
Too much competition from Flingers. The uniforms are way nicer anyway.
@310Drew: That fat guy on the Food Network with the white hair. That's who.
And it's "Sysco". Any Fridays that would get its food from Cisco deserves to go out of business.
I worked in a restaurant that had that happen - I was phoned at 10:30 at night telling me not to bother coming in for my 5:30 am shift. It's gutwrenching to get a call like that, especially out of the blue. In Ontario, at least, if Corporate takes over within a set amount of time, and "continues" the employment, you can't even get UI for the 2 weeks you're out a paycheck. The mismanagement that occurred after this made me quit. (At one point the ongoing kitchen manager got into a verbal altercation - a serious one - with the corporate guy over whether I was to use three one-ounce scoops or one three-ounce scoops.)
@mythago: Thanks, I came here to say that. The one in San Mateo was right across from a mall and (what up until recently was a) popular race track. They were also busy on Friday and Saturday nights, despite the food being absolutely horrible. I'm not sure why that one would close.
@LoriLynn: Nope, near the Jersey shore. While I'm not a fan of their prices, their stuff is much better than Subway.
It evens out in the universe. The Bennigan's in Santa Clara has mysteriously come back to life!
@Hooray4Zoidberg: i miss the ground round :( my grandmother was angry that the one in shrewsbury closed, lol.
@310Drew:
Who eats at Fridays anymore? The food is terrible and overpriced.
*Sigh* there's one in every thread.
Can we make "Who (eats, shops, etc.) at _____ anymore?" a bannable offense?
@ryan89:
Regardless, I am there for food, not pretty plates, and paying $1 less for 1/2 the food is a bad deal in anyone's book.
@Saboth: I agree, I was playing devil's advocate.
My wife and I never buy appetizers because they are as much (or more) than a meal and feed like 6 people. Texas Roadhouse now has the small cactus blossom for only 3.99 and it is even too much for 2 people. Too bad we get filled up on the free rolls and butter before we even get our meal.
@HarcourtArmstrong: Was that a little bird you found on pulledoutofmyass.com? These are three different restaurants; there was no allegation that three restaurants with three different managers suddenly had store managers killing their profits.
@InfiniTrent: Seconded. Maybe we can create a whole thread purely for people to post variations of "I am smarter, wiser and an all-around better human being than any other consumer".
@Corporate_guy: The accountability of franchises in general... I dont think there was much corporate could have done since they knew what was going on as much as the employees did, which in itself is a problem.
Gift cards and certificates, just for instance, I have had franchises of restaurants deny these. Something with their logo on it, from their corporate office...
@ryan89:
Heh we do the same (get full after the appetizer and rolls). Recently what we do is order an appetizer, and one entree and split it. And I do like the idea of the mini-blossom, we had one of those pretty recently as well. Seemed like a decently large portion for the money.
@ryan89: In other news, TGIFridays today announced their new "Thrify Meal" menu section where all items are served on paper plates with plastic utensils.
The Fazoli's near my house closed suddenly two days ago. Went by the other night...all the lights were on, but the chairs were stacked like they'd closed normally and there was a hastily printed piece of paper taped to the door that said "This Fazoli's has closed."
We were pretty surprised.
anyone who's been to these locations recently can probably understand why they closed down. shitty food, overpriced drinks, bad service, and a tacky atmosphere.
Aw hell, I suppose this means the value of my flash collection has just tanked.
@Donathius: We took a prospective new hire out for lunch and asked where he wanted to go, he said Fazoli's. When we got there the doors were locked with a sign on the door saying closed for business. All of them in the area closed down overnight.
HAD to be their freezers were repossessed, and once they realized the only thing they served that wasn't straight from the freezer to the microwave to the plate was a glass of tap water, they called it quits.
A TGI Fridays on my way to work was closed down recently too. Kinda sucks. I went there every once and a while, but, honestly, their food gets boring.
@mythago: Sure, but to those readers outside of the lower SE quadrant of the SF Bay Area, three suburbs bordering each other ARE the same. Right? :)
@mythago: YES PLEASE! "Who (eats, shops, etc.) at _____ anymore?" really should be a bannable offense. The people who post that crap do not CONTRIBUTE to the conversation.
Mob front. It's the only explanation.