Friendly's Restaurants

[patk]

9/30: The Friendly's restaurant chain is preparing for a possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and potential sale, said people familiar with the matter.

Friendly Ice Cream Corp., which employs roughly 10,000 people and operates more than 500 restaurants known for sundaes and hamburgers, could seek protection from creditors as soon as next week, the people said.

The Wilbraham, Mass.-based company would then try to sell itself through a bankruptcy auction, the people said.

A slumping U.S. economy has forced many consumers to dine out less frequently, crimping Friendly's sales just as rising prices for corn, butter .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576601232726499962.html

[Zayre88]

Wow... I just hope they can stay open and just be sold, not closed through a banrkuptcy.

[retailisking]

Can't say I'm surprised - the private equity deal saddled it with a lot of debt, and then the economy went sour.  I'm sure Sun Capital Partners pocketed their hefty management fees before the creditors came calling...

[store215]

Kind of sad as it is one of my favorite places when I was younger, but I can't say I am surprised given what I have seen at the ones around me. Now I haven't gone to one in about 5 years, but it was absolutely disgusting. Sticky tables, dirty carpets, slow service. This specific location is somehow still open, but is always DEAD when I drive by. The Applebee's (don't really care for them either) in the same center will have lines out the door. I think they only survive on people getting ice cream after going to the movie theater in the same center. Then they started to raise their prices drastically and introduce menu items that strayed away from the basics they were known for.

[Caldor1999]

most of the ones by me have really bad service but i would be sad if they were to shut down even though the service is pretty bad the food makes up for it in the end

[dmx10101]

Friendly’s closes 63 stores as ice cream chain files for bankruptcy

Friendly Ice Cream Corp., the troubled family restaurant chain that was a casualty of a tough economy and changing customer preferences, said it closed 63 of its nearly 500 locations as it looks to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Roughly 30 of the store closings are in Massachusetts, Wilbraham-based Friendly’s said in a press release. Those stores are in such communities as Acton, Attleboro, Dedham, Leominister, Needham, Quincy, Stoughton, and Worcester.

The company said it has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. It added that it has secured about $70 million in debtor-in-possession financing, and said that “424 Friendly’s restaurants will be open for business as usual during the company’s financial restructuring and there is expected to be no impact to manufacturing and distribution operations.”

The press release included a statement from Friendly’s chairman and chief executive Harsha V. Agadi, who said, “We have embarked on an aggressive campaign to enhance restaurant operations, improve the guest experience, strengthen our team, and expand the company’s successful retail ice cream business.”

According the release, Friendly’s had system-wide sales of about $700 million. Besides restaurants, Friendly’s also makes ice cream and other desserts that are sold in supermarkets and in other retail chains.

Friendly’s was founded by Prestley and Curtis Blake, brothers who started a neighborhood ice cream shop in Springfield during the Great Depression in 1935. Over the next several decades, the men opened hundreds of restaurants, carving a niche in the market as a family-friendly hangout serving ice cream treats before they began feuding over the direction the business would take. They sold it to Hershey in 1979.

During the 1950s, before anyone fretted about childhood obesity and before the mall had completely displaced Main Street as the business district of suburban communities, Friendly’s seemed the ideal place for New England families to share meals built around hamburgers and ice cream sundaes.

But times changed, and dining tastes evolved, and Friendly’s seemed hard pressed to catch up. In 2007, Friendly’s was bought for $337.2 million by Sun Capital Partners Inc., a Florida buyout firm.

“Restaurants have a life cycle, and Friendly’s has hit it,” industry analyst Ron Paul, president of Technomic Inc. in Chicago, recently told the Globe. “I don’t think there is any marketing fix when you are a model of a restaurant that went out of style.”

In a recent survey published last month by Nation’s Restaurant News, Friendly’s ranked 10th among 12 chains across the country in a consumer-preference survey. Friendly’s scored poorly on questions on value, food quality, and reputation. Only one chain among the dozen ranked lower when consumers were asked if they were likely to return.

Here’s a list of the closed Friendly’s restaurants.

Massachusetts:

Massachusetts Ave., Acton

Pleasant St., Attleboro

Boston Rd., Billerica

Broad St., Bridgewater

Belmont St., Brockton

Austin St., Charlestown

East St., Chicopee

Providence Pike, Dedham

John Fitch Plaza, Fitchburg

Central St., Foxboro

Federal St., Greenfield

Hanover Mall, Hanover

Mall at Whitney Field, Leominster

Monument Square, Leominster

Main St., Medfield

Chestnut St., Needham

Independence Ave., Quincy

Main St., Southbridge

Wilbraham Rd., Springfield

Washington St., Stoughton

Broadway, Taunton

Main St., Ware

Cranberry Highway, Wareham

West Boylston St., West Boylston

Main St., West Harwich

Westfield St., West Springfield

Turnpike Rd., Westboro

Church St., Whitinsville

Main St., Worcester

Park Ave., Worcester

Connecticut:

Boston Post Rd., Guilford

Buckland Mall, Manchester

Main St., Meriden

Storrs Rd./University Plaza, Storrs

E. Main St., Torrington

Waterbury Shopping Plaza, Waterbury

South Main St., West Hartford

Florida:

SR 64 East, Bradenton

Citrus Tower Blvd., Clermont

Eustis Plaza, Eustis,

S. Babcock St., Melbourne

Collegiate Way, Orlando

University Parkway, Sarasota

Maine:

High St., Ellsworth

Main St., Freeport

Sabattus St., Lewiston

New Hampshire:

Lafayette Rd., Portsmouth

New Jersey:

Hamilton Plaza, Trenton

New York:

Wolf Rd., Albany

Western Ave., Albany

Delaware Ave., Elsmere

Upper Glen St., Glens Falls

Congress St., Saratoga Springs

Altamont Ave., Schenectady

Pennsylvania:

Easton Rd., Doylestown

Coventry Mall, Pottstown

Rhode Island:

Kingstown Rd., Wakefield-Kingston

Warwick Ave., Warwick

Virginia:

2960 Boulevard, Colonial Heights

Fribble Way, Midlothian

Patterson Ave., Richmond

Brook Rd., Richmond

Vermont:

Montpelier Rd., Berlin-Barre

[ynkeesfn82]

Thanks for the list. The list ABC 40 in Springfield, Mass had on its Facebook page was too small to read.

[retailisking]

Friendly's CEO talks about the filing; he seems convinced he can turn things around...
http://nrn.com/article/friendlys-ceo-talks-nrn-about-ch-11-filing

[Zayre88]

Well there goes Friendly's Portsmouth. 

Portsmouth lost two Bickford's and the only Friendly's they had...  only IHOP is left.

[ynkeesfn82]

Article about the one in Torrington, CT closing:

http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2011/10/05/news/doc4e8c9d11a90a2302045219.txt

Article about the one in Meriden, CT closing:

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/meriden/article_d6b7c9a6-ef5c-11e0-b153-001cc4c002e0.html

[Lastdaysofrain]

Well there goes Friendly's Portsmouth. 

Portsmouth lost two Bickford's and the only Friendly's they had...  only IHOP is left.

Luckily Portsmouth has a lot of good mom and pop breakfast/diner style food options that blow Friendly's and Bickfords out of the water.

[retailisking]

Yeah, I'm hearing pretty good things about the Roundabout Diner that replaced Bickford's in the Portsmouth Traffic Circle.
http://roundaboutdiner.com/

The Friendly Toast, however, has been in trouble (financial and sanitation violations-wise) for some time.
http://www.thefriendlytoast.net/
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20110914-NEWS-109140364

[retailisking]

Friendly's site re-use news is coming fast and furious:

The former Friendly's in Niskayuna, NY is to be demolished to make way for more parking spaces for the hugely successful ShopRite, which is expanding due to the popularity of its delivery service:
http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/ShopRite-grows-Friendly-s-goes-3832148.php

The shuttered Westborough, MA Friendly's will become a bank branch. Although it only closed this year, the story states that the building has already fallen into disrepair...
http://westborough.dailyvoice.com/business/turnpike-road-friendlys-bought-165-million

The ex-Friendly's in Worcester (Tatnuck Square) will become a restaurant that serves alcohol
http://www.telegram.com/article/20120902/DIGESTS/109029922/1002/BUSINESS

The site of a former Friendly's in Leominster, MA will become, yup, another bank...
http://www.leominsterchamp.com/news/2012-08-31/Front_Page/Rollstone_Bank__Trust_breaks_ground_at_old_Friendl.html
http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/topstory/ci_21308094/rollstone-branching-out-plans-new-leominster-office

The ex-Friendly's in Medfield, MA will become a Dunkin' Donuts (not enough of them, either... :)
http://www.wickedlocal.com/medfield/news/x1733878904/ZBA-approves-Dunkin-Donuts-on-past-site-of-Medfield-Friendlys

Popeye's (now there's something I could embrace) will open at the former Friendly's in North Haven:
http://northhaven.patch.com/articles/popeyes-makes-plans-to-occupy-the-former-friendly-s-site-on-washington-avenue

Taco Bell (we have to make do with mall-based and co-branded with KFC around here) will come to the ex-Friendly's in Middletown:
http://middletownpress.com/articles/2012/08/09/news/doc5024630f6aff2222176343.txt