Writing of the possible demise of casual dining chains and suggesting that it's because people just aren't interested in spending their shrinking dining-out budgets at places like TGI Fridays anymore:
It seems like this is the most obvious reason to someone like me, who lives in a town where there’s an endless array of quality, independent restaurants that offer the same medium-level prices and mixed drinks as the casual dining chains, but don’t suck so bad that you feel like you just had sex against a dumpster with your sworn enemy after you eat there. (emphasis mine on the best part)
Makes you want to read the whole post, doesn't it? For my part, when we lived in Korea, my wife and I would occasionally feel the need to have some good ol' nasty American food, and we would drive to a Chili's on the south side of Seoul for that purpose. On the return drive of less than an hour, we would inevitably need to stop at one of Korea's great rest stops to hit the bathroom, because when your basic diet is rice and vegetables with a little bit of chicken, fish and a tiny bit of pork, having a huge hamburger and french fries or, God forbid, a steak, tends to hit your system fairly hard.
The Chili's in Korea was exactly like the ones here. Same for Outback, the fast food restaurants like Burger King and KFC, and for TGI Fridays. TGI Fridays sucks so bad that even if we were really feeling homesick and culture-shocked, we still wouldn't eat there.
So yeah, it's not exactly surprising to see TGI Fridays suffering right now.
