'Bankrupt - TGI Fridays' by Bright Sun Films, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse

I made a promise in the conclusion to Company Man asks 'The Decline of TGI Fridays...What Happened?' A tale of the Retail Apocalypse: "I stand by my opinion that 'I feel like no bankrupt company's story is fully told until both Company Man Mike and Jake Williams of Bright Sun Films have weighed in.' Should Jake follow through with a video of his own, I'll post it here." Jake did. Watch Bankrupt - TGI Fridays.

From its inception as a bar in New York, TGI Fridays great to become a massive restaurant brand across America and even the world. With well over 600 locations domestically and 70,000 employees company wide, it was truly an enormous chain. However despite it's meteoric growth, it would all come crashing down in just a few short years. Join me as I find out what happened to this iconic chain restaurant and how it ultimately declared bankruptcy.

Jake's take on why TGI Fridays ended up declaring bankruptcy was different from Company Man Mike's. Jake paid much less attention to competitors except at the end and much more on external factors, like the Great Recession, which initiated TGI Fridays' decline, and pandemic, which finally did the chain in. Company Man Mike also ignored private equity, which CNBC thought was behind TGI Fridays' and Red Lobster's bankruptcies. Jake made that a central part of the second half of the story, although he generally seemed to think that the private equity firms were at least trying.

That written, I think it's time to repeat my standard rant about private equity."I listed a who's who of retail chains gutted by private equity in CNN Business explains retail bankruptcies and how private equity is gutting retail, tales of the Retail Apocalypse and again in Business Insider and CNBC explain the rise and fall of Chuck E. Cheese, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse and pandemic." Add Party City, Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, Joann, Weight Watchers, and At Home to that list.

I missed Why So Many TGI Friday Restaurants Are Closing | WSJ What Went Wrong last November, which told a similar and more compressed version of the chain's story.

TGI Fridays, widely considered the first singles bar in the U.S., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, citing a problematic capital structure and fallout from the pandemic. The fast-casual restaurant chain has closed over 200 locations across the U.S. since 2019 and have even been kicked out of its headquarters in Dallas.

WSJ breaks down how the once happy hour hot spot lost its flair.

The Wall Street Journal added two factors that both Company Man Mike and Jake missed, whole business securitization and frequent leadership changes. The first is the kind of arcane financial arrangement that I'm not surprised WSJ caught but Mike and Jake ignored or glossed over, while the second is exactly the kind of thing Mike would normally catch. Now I'm wondering if Mike did his best work last November.

That's a wrap for today's installment of the slow-motion disaster that is the Retail Apocalypse. Stay tuned as I resume my coverage of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.