Friendly’s Files for Bankruptcy, Joins Chuck E. Cheese and Ruby Tuesday

Friendly’s Files for Bankruptcy, Joins Chuck E. Cheese and Ruby Tuesday

The Fribble is in trouble.

FIC Restaurants, the parent company of Friendly’s, said it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after the coronavirus pandemic caused sales to plummet.

By 1974 the chain had grown to 500 restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and Midwest and today they have just 130.

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Friendly's was founded in 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, by brothers Prestley and Curtis Blake in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Selling Off Assets

The company will sell substantially all of its assets to Amici Partners Group for nearly $2 million, according to a Monday court filing. FIC estimated in its Sunday bankruptcy filing that its assets were worth $1 million to $10 million. Friendly’s is asking for the bankruptcy court to approve of the sale in mid-December.

Friendly's joins a growing number of restaurants that have filed for bankruptcy as a result of the pandemic, including Chuck E. Cheese’s parent company and Ruby Tuesday. More are expected to follow as Covid-19 cases surge and cold weather hits demand for outdoor dining.

“Unfortunately, like many restaurant businesses, our progress was suddenly interrupted by the catastrophic impact of COVID-19, which caused a decline in revenue as dine-in operations ceased for months and re-opened with limited capacity,” FIC Restaurants CEO George Michel said in a statement.

Nearly all of Friendly’s restaurants are expected to remain open, although that is subject to Covid-19 restrictions. Restaurant supplier U.S. Foods is FIC’s largest creditor.