Huge UK restaurant chain COLLAPSES into administration after 87 sites put up for sale – is one going near you?

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.

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It comes after TV star Simon Rimmer's last remaining Greens restaurant announced its closure yesterday - just months after the original shut its doors.

Hostmore, which owns TGI in this country, is scrambling to sell the franchise so it can continue to operate under new ownership.

The hospitality firm said it had appointed joint administrators from Teneo and hopes to sell all of its 87 UK restaurants to new owners by the end of September.

This would keep the TGI Fridays brand alive and save thousands of jobs amid concerns the famous name could vanish from the high street.

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But it said earlier this month that it was not expecting to "recover any meaningful value" from the sale of sites - meaning it would earn less from the sale than it owes to creditors and banks.

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.

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.

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ABANDONED TAKEOVER

It comes after Hostmore 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.

It would have merged with US-based TGI Fridays Inc, to create a larger firm that would remain listed in London.

But the takeover plans were dropped after a management change which would have meant it could not collect royalties from the TGI Fridays brand.

News of the collapse caused shares in the London-listed company tank by more than 90 per cent.

The share price has fallen by 96 per cent since the start of this month to close yesterday at 22p.

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". 

'DUB DUBS'

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 10 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 de-listed from the London Stock Exchange.

Its UK restaurants, which have a New York-influenced food and cocktails menu, continue to stay open as normal.

TGI Fridays' biggest market is in the US where there are 128 restaurants, including franchised sites, and it operates more than 270 in countries around the world.

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In April, Tasty, the owners of Italian restaurant Wildwood and Dim T, a pan-Asian restaurant, announced plans to exit around 20 loss-making restaurants after a "challenging" start to the year.

Italian restaurant chain Prezzo announced it was closing dozens of branches last year, with fears now growing for more to come.