WBZ reports what's left of the once iconic New England ice-cream chain will be sold - even as it files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in nine years.
In addition to Dunkin' and Friendly's, Legal Sea Food is also in negotiations to get bought up.
Drew Starr asks:
Does anyone in Boston or within delivery distance of Back Bay make a patty melt on par with Friendly's?
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.
The Boston Business Journal reports Friendly's latest attempt to redefine itself and stay alive involves switching the kind of ice cream used to make Fribbles from soft to hard.
The Friendly’s Fribble has real ice cream once again, MassLive reports.
Friendly's makes it official, files for bankruptcy again, shuts 30 Massachusetts restaurants, including the one in Dedham, which would make me sad if only we hadn't stopped going there because the service consistently sucked.
The Wall Street Journal gets the scoop: Cheap food served slow no longer cutting it.
Opens a "Friendly's Express" in Mansfield that allegedly serves up food at the same speed as normal restaurants, instead of at the glacial pace most Friendly's customers have learned to expect, Channel 4 reports.
Anali writes we'll find out June 6 when Friendly's gives away free ice cream. She's still a bit tender on the topic of free food because she got caught up in the chicken giveaway fiasco at a Quincy KFC.
Some Florida holding company is buying Friendly's for $337 million. I heard the Friendly's CEO on 'BZ this morning explaining that the purchase won't affect the chain's operations, which is great news for people who like long waits for so-so food and who enjoy listening to short-staffed workers get short tempered with each other.
Working as a waitress, not the best of jobs in any way, less so when you work as a waitress in an out of the way strip mall, in an old style family restaurant, where table cloths are considered extras.
There is an old Friendly’s restaurant in the strip mall near me. From back when Friendly’s made no pretense of being a real restaurant, when a strip mall pretended to be an upscale mall. Back when Friendly’s was nothing but a neighborhood ice cream shop, with tables as old as the strip mall, and a wait staff older still.
And the wait staff there is old, old enough to not still be working, old enough for me to expect they are only supplementing their social security incomes. Yet by the look of them, they never had much in the way of income.
It hasn't been a good year for old-time Westie institutions along Centre Street. Slyne's, Yoo Hoo's, Hanley's, the bowling alley, and now Friendly's - all gone. OK, granted, the Real Deal is way superior to Slyne's and the service at Friendly's could charitably be described as "glacial" (to the point where, if we HAD to go to Friendly's, I'd lobby for the one in Dedham), but still, where ya gonna go bowling and get a cone afterwards? Short of driving to Ron's Gourmet Ice Cream and Bowling in Hyde Park, that is.
The next time I begin to relent and agree to take my daughter to the West Roxbury Friendly's for lunch, could somebody rush over and slap me in the face and remind me what happened today (25 minutes after we ordered, our food to show up; seems somebody up front cancelled the order), so I never make that mistake again?
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