Shoppers World Owner Says TGI Fridays Will Not Renew Lease

FRAMINGHAM – SITE Centers Corp, the owners of Shoppers World, told the Framingham Planning Board that TGI Fridays lease will end in a couple of months, and the casual restaurant chain has no interest in renewing its lease.

So the owners of Shoppers World want to take advantage of the COVID market and demolish the TGI Fridays when the lease ends and construct two drive-thru operations and two other businesses in its place.

TGI Friday’s CEO Ray Blanchette will close between 10% to 12% restaurants globally at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an interview with Bloomberg News.

The chief executive told Bloomberg in May 2020 TGI Fridays would permanently close 20% of US restaurants due to declining sales from the pandemic.

When the pandemic hit last year, TGIF Fridays sales fell roughly 80%.

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Blanchette told Bloomberg. Pickup and delivery channels have helped revenue bounce back, but it’s still down 50%

Alan Stillman opened the first TGI Fridays restaurant in 1965, in New York.

There are about 335 restaurants in the United States

SITE Centers Corp already has two empty restaurant locations in Shoppers World – the former Joe’s American Bar & Grill, which closed way before the pandemic, and John Harvard’s, which closed during the pandemic.

Also in Shoppers World is a stand alone Olive Garden, a Chipotle, a new panini restaurant coming, and the Starbucks.

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