A HUGE UK restaurant chain has collapsed into administration with 87 stores put up for sale.
The future of TGI Fridays restaurants in the UK is in doubt amid fears the hospitality group behind it could collapse.
TGI Fridays may be closing down with sites up for sale[/caption]
Administrators are now on standby at the British arm of TGI, which has 87 outlets in the UK, amid concerns the famous name could vanish from the high street.
Hostmore, which owns TGI in this country, is now scrambling to sell the franchise so it can continue to operate under new ownership.
The restaurant chain first opened in the UK in the 1980s and has been a popular destination for birthday parties and cocktail nights for the last 40 years.
The first branch of T.G.I. Friday’s was opened in New York in 1965 to celebrate weekend dining – the name means ‘Thank God It’s Friday – and in 1986 the brand was imported to the UK.
In a stock market update last Monday, Hostmore said sales so far this year are 12 per cent lower than the same period last year, blaming ‘persistent warmer weather than the comparative period in 2023 and underlying weak consumer spending’.
The company also said it had abandoned plans to buy all the TGI restaurants in the US, where there are 128 sites, in a deal that would have been worth £177million.
Hostmore, has seen its share price collapse in the last week after it announced it had dropped ambitious plans to buy up outlets in the US.
Shares in the London-listed company were all but wiped out following the announcement.
The share price has fallen by 96 per cent since the start of this month to close yesterday at 22p.
After first opening in Birmingham, TGI Fridays spread rapidly around the country with its popular format of casual American bistro-style dining.
Serving staff were known as Dub Dubs, and taught the art of entertaining their customers with jokes, banter, and other gimmicks like juggling and magic tricks, all performed with impeccable table craft and cheeriness.
In the early 1990s, the Covent Garden branch of T.G.I. Friday’s was reported to be the busiest restaurant in Europe.
The chain was acquired by a private equity firm ten years ago, with a rebrand removing all the punctuation from the restaurant name to make it TGI Fridays.
In 2021, the company was spun out into Hostmore, a listed company and the restaurants were briefly renamed just ‘Fridays’ before marketing chiefs found customers still called it ‘TGI’s’ and restored the original name.
In recent times the chain restaurant’s fortunes have faded, and Hostmore revealed that UK sales have fallen by more than a tenth this year, compared with last year.
Now Hostmore is in the process of selling its UK restaurants to new owners, with the aim of becoming a fully franchise-operated model.
The sale process, which is predicted to be completed by the end of the month, is expected to result in Hostmore being wound up and delisted from the London Stock Exchange.
Its UK restaurants, which have a New York-influenced food and cocktails menu, continue to stay open as normal.
It has not been confirmed if all of TGI’s restaurants could be saved, or just a selection, with others potentially being taken over by another chain.
