TGI Fridays: Doncaster restaurant at risk as chain collapses into administration

Hostmore, which owns TGI in this country, is scrambling to sell the franchise so it can continue to operate under new ownership.

The hospitality firm said it had appointed joint administrators from Teneo and hopes to sell all of its 87 UK restaurants to new owners by the end of September.

This would keep the TGI Fridays brand alive and save thousands of jobs amid concerns the famous name could vanish from the high street.

But it said earlier this month that it was not expecting to "recover any meaningful value" from the sale of sites - meaning it would earn less from the sale than it owes to creditors and banks.

It has not been confirmed if all of TGI’s restaurants could be saved, or just a selection, with others potentially being taken over by another chain.

The restaurant chain first opened in the UK in the 1980s and has been a popular destination for birthday parties and cocktail nights for the last 40 years.

The first branch of T.G.I. Friday’s was opened in New York in 1965 to celebrate weekend dining - the name means ‘Thank God It’s Friday - and in 1986 the brand was imported to the UK.

It comes after Hostmore abandoned plans to buy all the TGI restaurants in the US, where there are 128 sites, in a deal that would have been worth £177million.

But the takeover plans were dropped after a management change which would have meant it could not collect royalties from the TGI Fridays brand.

Now Hostmore is in the process of selling its UK restaurants to new owners, with the aim of becoming a fully franchise-operated model.

The sale process, which is predicted to be completed by the end of the month, is expected to result in Hostmore being wound up and de-listed from the London Stock Exchange.

The company had previously said it was weighing up opportunities to shut restaurants that were losing money and had taken steps to improve the performance of 20 struggling sites.