Following in Red Lobster's clawsteps, TGI Friday's is cooked. The casual dining chain filed Saturday for bankruptcy protection after "abruptly" closing about a third of its locations. About half have closed in total this year.
[John] Bringardner told CNN that the chain's dwindling location count, changing consumer preferences and lower-cost competition from fast food has left the company "unable to service its debt" and that a filing could come in November before the next round of lease payments for its remaining restaurants.
Consider CNN's pithy description of a TGI Friday's:
Diners instantly recognize its kitschy interior with Tiffany-style lamps and big red booths, plus a big bar that's usually the focal point of a TGI Fridays. Plus, its service staff wore "flair," or pins and other decorative pieces on their uniforms that became a joke on the 1999 film "Office Space."
As I wrote when Red Lobster when claws up, the pandemic was not the cause, but the accellerant. The long-smoking anthracite fire in the Premium Mediocre mine blew up. These places haven't changed since the end of the cold war because older Americans are in heaven there, and their preferences are firmly established to the point where introducing change upsets them. The result is an anxious coefficient where the customer headcount declines but individual spending increases. The weaker members of the herd—those most enshittified ("Scan this QR code to find your nearest TGI Fridays!") or laden with debt by private equity deals—die to the benefit of the leaner, stronger chains.
But of course this was all predicted in Demolition Man, second among era movies that chuds think is on their side. The winner of that winnowing was not Taco Bell, it turns out, but Cheesecake Factory, which is doing fabulously.
