WBZ reports Friendly's is shrinking even more, closing outlets in Waltham and Framingham as part of an overall retrenchment across the Northeast. The Norwood Friendly's will remain open, at least for now.
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friendlys
By bostnkid
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 2:16pm
i thought i remembered them saying they were going to make the restaurants cleaner and the service better? i haven't noticed much of a change to either.
They've been getting harder to find for years now
By Ron Newman
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 2:33pm
They used to be in the little Charlestown shopping center in Thompson Square, but closed years ago. Within the past year, they also closed in front of the Watertown Mall. That one is turning into something truly useless, a Chase Bank branch.
I also recall one in Coolidge Corner that they tried to modernize into a new format, only to close it soon afterwards.
Looks like they will still be open in Stoneham, near the zoo.
Ah, Charlestown site...
By Friartuck
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:05pm
Breakfast was always good!
Variable
By perruptor
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 8:23pm
Friendly's was my daughter's favorite place to eat for a long time. We would find one on the way back from gymnastic meets, so I've sampled a lot of them. Quality was always variable over both time and location. They keep playing with the menu. A few years ago, they had some very good offerings. I remember the steak tips in particular. That menu lasted about a year, and every version since has had fewer choices.
It could have been a respectable restaurant, if it had better quality control.
This
By Scratchie
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 9:55am
Correct about the variability. My family loves Friendly's, but even at the same location, it could be fine one day and bad a week later.
The people who run the company seem to be idiots, re-branding every year or two. This seems to require the restaurants to buy entirely new dinnerware in a lot of cases, which is moronic. Literally nobody is going to make a decision about eating at Friendly's based on what kind of dish their fries come in.
If they had focused on their core menu and quality control, it seems like that would have been a better strategy (but no consultant would get paid to redesign the interiors that way), but the whole family sit-down restaurant sector is struggling (damn millennials!) so it may be a lost cause.
Friendly's-----ahhh, yes! I remember them well.
By mplo
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 10:56am
There was a Friendly's in Harvard Square, and also one in Chestnut Hill, as well.
Stoneham Friendly's is closing now, too
By Ron Newman
Wed, 10/16/2019 - 5:58pm
Closing on November 10. The Saugus location also recently closed. This leaves only a Logan Airport terminal location within Route 128.
Friendly
By Bugs Bunny
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 2:45pm
Friendly should close the restaurant concept, it's over for that. Just go with all ice cream model and open smaller stands in towns.
Except that
By Turalura Lipschitz
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:58pm
their ice cream sucks compared to everyone else's.
Doesn't matter.
By Wiffleball
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 4:23pm
By the time food finally gets brought to your table you're starving and have already begun to nibble on the plastic menus.
It's a strategy.
Friendly's ice cream is known for having chemicals in it, also.
By mplo
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 10:57am
:(
As opposed to most other ice
By Scratchie
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 11:36am
As opposed to most other ice creams out there? Which specific chemicals does Friendly's use that other brands don't?
rip kevin the best waiter at
By locke
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:00pm
rip kevin the best waiter at the waltham friendly's forever. i hope he has a lot of happiness in his life now
maybe change the name
By Luke Warm
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:03pm
maybe change the name for mass
Unfriendly?
By section77
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 6:51pm
Or maybe just a snarly "Sup Bro??"
A long time ago when I lived
By anon
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:03pm
A long time ago when I lived in Watertown Square, I was stunned when I visited the nearby Friendly's one summer evening to buy ice cream. The hours for the place were like 10am-6pm Monday-Thursday, 10-8 Friday-Saturday, 12-4 Sunday. It was 90 degrees outside, sunny, and the place was closed.
That Friendy's was the only ice cream shop within miles, and it was run like they were trying to not make money. Not long afterwards, it closed down and turned into a Starbucks.
Belmont
By cybah
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:39pm
Are you sure that was the Cushing Square Friendly's?
I worked over on Common Street and I remember when Friendlys closed (it JUST closed) and Starbucks opened in 2001.
Cushing Square in Belmont
By Ron Newman
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 5:36pm
One of the very last Brigham's ice cream shops was a few blocks from there, where Trapelo Road meets Belmont Street. It is now [url=http://www.moozysicecream.net/]Moozy's Ice Cream[/url].
And a few blocks further east was [url=https://www.rancs.com/]Rancatore's[/url], which later moved to their current Belmont Center location, and still later opened a second location in Lexington Center.
He said WATERTOWN Square
By Charles Bahne
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 6:09pm
There was a Friendly's on Mount Auburn Street in Watertown, about a block or two out of the square, on the right has you head towards Cambridge. It was converted to a Starbucks years and years ago. It may even have been something else before it became Starbucks. The building is still there, still the recognizable Friendly's shape.
There was also a Friendly's in Cushing Square, on Trapelo Road, south side of the street, just west of the square. It too got converted to a Starbucks. That building was demolished recently to make way for the new development going in there.
And yes, there was also a Brigham's just outside Cushing Square, a few blocks east of the square, also on the south side of the street, right at the corner of Belmont Street. That was not a freestanding building; it was part of a block of stores. The last I checked, it was still an ice cream shop, no longer a Brigham's.
Friendlys or Brighams?
By Rick Thurston
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 10:54pm
When you come down Common Street to Mt. Auburn to the light with the cemetary on your left there is a domo center in front of you. Was that once a Friendlys or a Brighams?
I believe he/she is talking
By anon
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 1:05am
I believe he/she is talking about the Friendly's that used to be on Mt Auburn St, just outside Wat Sq.
*cry*
By Melissa
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 3:46pm
Best french fries.
Fribbles dribbles
By MisterMagooForYoo
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 8:33pm
Whenever Magoo eats at the big F Magoo gets the case of the dribbles down the back side of magoo’s leg of the chocolate variety, if you know what Magoo means. Magoo.
I have no idea what you are talking about
By Ron Newman
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 8:36pm
Can you translate this into English please?
Magoo
By Bugs Bunny
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 10:30pm
Magoo gets food poisoning when he eats at Friendly.
I do
By perruptor
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 5:34am
Believe me, you don't want to know.
Why do internet posters pretend they don’t understand?
By Kapil
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 8:50am
Clearly Ron Newman is aware that the joke here (couched in the Magoo shtick) is that Friendly’s gives MisterMagooForYou the runs. Yes, Ron Newman, it is not a funny joke but why pretend you don’t get it? If you want to tell him he sucks, there are infinite ways to do so without pretending to be naive. Sarcasm is always an easy option. A simple, “Yeah bro, you should take this Magoo bit on the road” would do fine.
I wonder why they let it get so bad...
By lud10
Mon, 04/08/2019 - 11:03pm
The last time I went in, had to literally turn around and leave. It was so disgusting.
I’ve many happy Friendly’s memories.
Their tuna melt was awesome and the Reeses’s peanut butter cup sundae #1. I hope those sundae cups will remain available in supermarkets.
Judging by the
By polarbare
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 8:51am
number of drug deals at the ice cream window of the one in Framingham, I think that legalized pot had something to do with this.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Too bad
By Scratchie
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 9:51am
That could have helped turn them around.
A combined dispensary/ice cream window?
By erik g
Tue, 04/09/2019 - 7:54pm
If we could get the board to approve it, it would be a license to print money.
But then,
By perruptor
Wed, 04/10/2019 - 6:33am
You'd probably have to make an appointment to get ice cream. Doesn't seem like a good business plan.
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