More than 1,000 staff at TGI Fridays have been made redundant as 35 stores will be closed "immediately" across the UK.
The UK operator of TGI Fridays revealed last month it had entered administration as it scrambled to sell its chain of 87 restaurants across the country.
On Monday (October 7) joint administrators at Teneo revealed Breal Capital and Calveton UK had acquired 51 restaurants.
The deal means TGI Fridays will remain on UK high streets and nearly 2,400 jobs have been saved.
UK high street shops that no longer exist
However, 35 restaurants were not included in the sale and have been closed immediately, resulting in 1,012 redundancies.
Chief executive of TGI Fridays UK, Julie McEwan, said: “The news today marks the start of a positive future for our business following a very challenging period for the casual dining sector as a whole.
“We are devastated for our colleagues who will be leaving TGIs and thank them for their loyalty and contribution during their time with us.
“We are doing everything possible to retain our team and support those impacted.”
All 35 TGI Fridays restaurants in the UK closing "immediately"
The 35 TGI Fridays restaurants closing down across the UK are:
- Barnsley
- Birmingham
- Bracknell
- Brighton Marina
- Bristol Cabot Circus
- Cardiff Newport Road
- Chelmsford
- Cheltenham
- Croydon
- Derby
- Dundee
- Durham
- Edinburgh Fort Kinnaird
- Enfield
- Gateshead
- Gloucester Quays
- Halifax
- Jersey
- Leeds
- Leeds Trinity
- Leicester
- Lincoln
- Manchester Royal Exchange
- Newcastle Eldon Square
- Newport
- Northampton
- Prestwich
- Romford
- Sale
- Solihull
- Southampton West Quay South
- Speke
- Sutton Coldfield
- Swansea
- Watford North
RECOMMENDED READING:
The collapse of the London-listed hospitality business came after plans to buy the US restaurant chain for £177 million fell through in September.
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.
TGI Fridays joins other big name businesses including Papa Johns and the Body Shop in closing sites in 2024.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here