TGI Fridays in Riverhead, one of the last remaining in the national restaurant chain operating on Long Island, closed its doors on Monday, according to a sign posted on the restaurant’s doors.
The bar and grill restaurant, previously one of four surviving locations in Nassau and Suffolk, is the latest in the chain to close. Restaurants in Rockville Center and Westbury closed late last year, while other restaurants on Long Island closed earlier in the year, according to the Long Island Press.
The restaurant is an original tenant at Riverhead Centre, which was developed in 2003. While other stores and restaurants in the shopping center came and went, TGI Fridays, which for a period was rebranded as just “Fridays,” remained open and survived economic crises like the Great Recession and the coronavirus shutdown.
The closure came months after the chain’s parent company, TGI Fridays Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October to restructure the company. The company struggled with financial challenges brought, in part, by the coronavirus pandemic, an executive at the company said in a statement at the time.
TGI Friday’s NY LLC, the entity that operated restaurants in Riverhead and others in New York, was named as a debtor in the bankruptcy proceeding. TGI Friday’s NY LLC reported a net loss of $213,745 from Nov. 19 to Dec. 30, according to a document filed in bankruptcy court on Monday.
TGI Fridays did not return an email or phone call requesting comment before this article was published.
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