Another theory I’ve seen: it wasn’t so much millennials who killed chain restaurants as the internet, and later the smartphone. Thirty years ago, if you were visiting an unfamiliar area, you might decide to eat at Applebee’s or Bennigan’s solely because you didn’t want to take a gamble on some local restaurant. Now that everyone has an immediately available guide to every area’s local cuisine in their pocket, there’s less need for a “guaranteed to be average-to-good” option.
In the UK you can add pretty much any retail business to that list. Clothing stores in particular have been closing at a fast rate thanks to the geniuses in the PE world. I used to love TM Lewin shirts!
The one I have seen a definite downturn in is Moe’s. Final time I went to one they had discontinued several staple items (like mushrooms, which for me are non-negotiable) and had “streamlined” their menu (read: no more Junior Burritos). Rude employees, filthy work area full of old food bits everywhere, just an unappetizing experience all around.
Our last TGI Fridays closed years ago, and the last time we went there, the food was mediocre and very expensive. Applebys is also long gone. The only major corporate restaurants that are still thriving around these parts are Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Texas Roadhouse. Quality at TR has never wavered after all these years and the place is always packed. They must be doing something right.
There’s a Bob Evans nearby and there are never any cars in the parking lot. Never. I don’t know how they stay in business.
We rarely dine out because my wife checks the PA Department of Agriculture restaurant inspections, and many eateries have repeated failures. One or two minor issues will get a pass but 8 or 10, especially involving cleanliness, and they get ruled out. It’s saved us quite a bit or money (and probably intestinal distress.)
They were really gherkin you around.
“Where’s the pickle?”
“That’s the surprise!”
They catered to the mid tier business lunch crowd. With less office workers less need to feed them. Maybe a victim of COVID related habit and supply changes?
It sounds like someone’s got a case of the Mondays.
Well, who doesn’t like good food, good fun, and a whole lot of crazy crap on the walls?
This is pretty common in the restaurant industry. The most common reasons I’ve heard for not informing employees is to avoid having them jump ship before the close date, avoid thefts, and to avoid any loss of productivity. It’s pretty crummy, but then the restaurant industry tends to treat their employees poorly overall.
I used to love TGIFs in the 90s. Great place to get drinks and appetizers. Went back to one about 15 years ago and it was absolutely horrible and expensive. Never returned.
This insight deserves IMO more support than has been shown in the thread.
We’ve had lots of threads over the years about how many people are very unadventurous in their eating and when away from their home area are timid about doing anything other than a franchise standard. The advent of e.g. Yelp makes it possible to both play safe and not have to choose e.g. TGIF.
So they lost that particular captive audience.
And this one:
WFH is totally upending retail and restaurants in what were office-heavy districts, downtown or otherwise.
Back when I worked in a suburban office (early 2000s) a group of us went out to eat lunch 5 days a week. Constrained to whatever was within ~3 miles of the office and reasonably fast service. Which made us a captive customer base for the ~10 places which fit those parameters. And made the other few thousand office workers nearby into the same captive customer base to the same places.
Now? Mostly empty offices while the workers are WFH.
TGI Friday’s sells/sold(?) vodka drinks at the liquor store; unfortunately, not in my state anymore. They have/had a Orange Dream / Creamsicle one. A couple scoops of creamsicle ice cream & some of that (in place of milk) poured into my milkshake maker was the best milkshake I’ve ever had. my stash is running out. 
The branded potato “chips” (made from dehydrated spuds) are OK — not great but I didn’t regret buying them the few times I bought them.
Brian
Fridays doesn’t sell those (or the snack chips) directly; they license the brand name, logo, and the flavor names to a third-party manufacturer.
Absolutely–I hadn’t thought about it that way, but that applies to me as well.
Back in like 2000, my wife and I went on a road trip and stopped at a local Chinese buffet. It was so grotesquely dire that we left hungry and worried about whether we were gonna come down with botulism or salmonella. We decided at that point not to be adventurous on highway trips, to stick to mediocre fast food.
Just this summer, it occurred to us that we could use Google reviews to nix that rule, and instead of stopping at Bojangles, we found a tiny Carniceria with glorious cheap food and lots of good recs. We’ll be relying on Google reviews going forward.
It’s still made. Some online liquor stores carry it. I don’t know anything about shipping to where you live.
This cite / site might be useful: Best local price for T.G.I. Friday’s Orange Dream Blender - stores near you in USA
Absolutely. A further consequence of this is the value for the franchisee diminishes (customers knowing what they’ll get cause any app can tell them), but they cannot adapt and so the contract becomes a millstone. Subway’s 5 Dollar Footlong is a perfect example.
It’s my pet theory that is one of the key reasons fast food is so expensive now. Owners of these establishments see the writing on the wall and know a million dollar building that requires a dozen cheap teenagers to feed starving masses daily to function will not be a thing in 10 years and so are cashing out their reputations from corporate on down to individual owners. They’re giving less and asking for more while you are still in the building.
Back in September my wife and I had some of the best ramen we have ever had in our lives in Trondheim, where we stopped during a cruise. Pre-smartphone we would never have considered going to a Japanese restaurant in Norway, but it was nearby and it was very well-reviewed, so we went for it. 15 years ago we might have reluctantly gone to MacDonald’s instead.
This is depressing. I have always liked these family restaurants, like TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesday, Applebees, and their brethren. I have many fond memories of family meals at these places.
The downward spiral is easy to spot if you are a regular patron: even if the staff are friendly, the buildings start to wear, becoming somewhat shabbier, and the quality of the ingredients begins to decline.
I like to ask for a side of bleu cheese dressing with my fries, and that combination is a decent measure of things going south: In a healthy restaurant, the fries will be fresh, seasoned, and appealing. In a healthy restaurant the dressing will be thick, chunky, and tasty. As things decline, the dressing begins to look more like the cheaper bottled stuff from the supermarket. Eventually the dressing takes on a translucent look, as if it were mayo. As things decline further, the fries cease to be fancy seasoned fries and begin to look like generic smooth frozen fries that they tossed in the frier (or worse, microwaved).