I hate TGI Fridays – inedible food, sticky tables, awful drinks. But while one might see the decline of TGIs as a good thing for a bad brand there is also no doubt that an evening out at TGIs was a rite of passage for so many teenagers through the years, and will bring back memories both good and bad in eveyone.
The heyday of the chain is long gone – times when the Haymarket branch would regularly break records for revenues, and TGIs popped up at every backwater shopping mall from Islington to Inverness. The business has been part of a downward spiral pass the parcel among different investors for years now, and the most recent rescue deal for TGI saw 51 restaurants acquired by new owners last October after the previous UK operator collapsed into administration.
They have now published a list of further closures, and the one that sticks out is the iconic Leicester Square branch. TGI Fridays invested £3.5 million in opening the Leicester Square site at the end of 2015. Located beneath the Capital Radio studios, TGIs described it at the time as “Fridays jewel in London’s crown”, after a huge refit to create an open kitchen and large four-sided stand-alone bar.
While the brand is undoubtably tired and exhausted, and (looking on the brightside) that diner’s tastes have evolved quite a lot and in a good way over recent years, I suspect this closure is not unconnected with the continuing fallout from Brexit, the horrendous economic legacy of the last government combined with the minimum wage changes and increase in employers’ NI, which are causing chaos in throughout the world of hospitality.
And now TGI is gone. From Leicester Square at least. I suspect the few remaining branches will not be far behind.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi