Back at the beginning of May, Consumerist broke the story of a man who discovered a decomposing snake head in his side order of broccoli at TGI Friday’s. We even had charming pictures. The next week, Albany, NY-area news media reported that the snake wasn’t steamed with the broccoli, but the restaurant and police still don’t know who the herp perp could be. What they do know is that the notoriety from the snake incident has hurt business.

Of course, the question is how much of the business decrease is due to the snake incident, and how much due to the bad economy. On what was clearly a slow news day, local 24-hour news station Capital News 9 paid the restaurant a visit.

Off camera, waiters tell Capital News 9 the May snake incident has dealt a major blow to sales. To attract more people, Friday’s is trying the proactive approach, soliciting buy one get one free coupons through email.

Amy Freshwater, corporate spokesperson, wouldn’t link the snake incident and the promotion but she did say, “We’ve obviously had a lot going on in this market in the past month and we wanted to thank the community and our guests for sticking by us. We thought it was a great way to give summer a kick start and also give guests a chance to try some of our new menu items.”

The logical thing to do would be to compare that specific restaurant with other ones in the area, but I’m going to guess that TGI Friday’s isn’t about to release those numbers.

T.G.I. Friday’s tries to revamp sales [Capital News 9] (via All Over Albany)

(Photos: pieterjanviaene, benimoto )

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