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Are All the Chain Restaurants Going to Start Looking Identical?Chain


DaveO

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More comforting news:  It appears that many many chain restaurants are ALL GOING to look amazingly similar.  I guess that is sort of comforting in a way.  You can have a hard time deciding between Ruby Tuesday's and Applebee's...and now it won't matter.  They will look exactly alike!!!!!

Hmmm   possibly the most interesting tidbit in this story is the origin of TGI Friday's...as an NYC pickup joint that would encourage models and airline hostesses to visit the restaurant/bar...and help the guy who started it...to get lots of dates.  That guy was ingenious and determined. 

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The origin story of Friday's was indeed fascinating! I never would have suspected that it was "'a hotspot for the Memphis counterculture,' known 'for its boozy adventures, drug experimentation, and sexual subversion—including an underground queer scene.'”

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I was a grad student in NYC in the late 60's and remember that original TGIF, although I never actually went there, being too poor to partake of such places, and anyway it was way over on the East Side, a place difficult to access from my student digs on the upper West Side, both geographically and psychologically.  In those days such places were known as "fern bars," and after TGIFridays showed the way they started to pop up everywhere, as the article says.  They all looked pretty much alike, with junky decor on the walls and plants hanging everywhere.  It was all the rage.

The fact that they all looked alike is not surprising, nor it is a surprise that they are changing their decor in lockstep today.  These things move in waves, as the pendulum swings back and forth.   It's called "fashion," and just like clothing, every interior  design follows the same cues.  I watch a lot of house flip and restaurant makeover shows on TV, and it's the same thing.  Throw out the old clutter, and install cool, simple, clean if not "natural" decor.  Every "with it" home kitchen these days is done in grays and has subway tile backsplashes (another NYC echo). But that will soon fade and be replaced by the NEXT BIG THING.  Nobody can predict what it will be, but inevitably it will come.

 

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On 8/24/2016 at 8:22 AM, johnb said:

I was a grad student in NYC in the late 60's and remember that original TGIF ...

I live a couple of blocks from it.  It's now a fairly decent Irish bar, oddly named Baker Street, and still has what is essentially the original layout.  Not a bad place to go for a burger and a pint, with a slightly older crowd from the neighborhood.  It's light years better than the typical post-frat-house Irish bars on seemingly every block.

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1 hour ago, RWBooneJr said:

I live a couple of blocks from it.  It's now a fairly decent Irish bar, oddly named Baker Street, and still has what is essentially the original layout.  Not a bad place to go for a burger and a pint, with a slightly older crowd from the neighborhood.  It's light years better than the typical post-frat-house Irish bars on seemingly every block.

You should check to see if the guy that originally opened Friday's is still there, still trying to pick up women.  Look for a very old, very horny guy.  ;)  (I thought that was an amazing tidbit of restaurant history).  

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1 hour ago, DaveO said:

You should check to see if the guy that originally opened Friday's is still there, still trying to pick up women.  Look for a very old, very horny guy.  ;)  (I thought that was an amazing tidbit of restaurant history).  

Alan Stillman sold TGI Fridays in 1975 and started Smith & Wollensky, which he still runs.

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