Friendly’s shrinks from 850 restaurants to 87, but expert sees hope

Friendly’s casual-dining chain once known for double-dip cones and family-style burger dinners has shrunk from roughly 850 restaurants at its 1990s peak to just 87 locations across 11 Eastern states, according to Fox News Digital.

Friendly’s was founded in 1935 as a Springfield, Massachusetts, ice cream shop by brothers Prestley and Curtis Blake, then 20 and 18, who sold cones for a nickel apiece. The chain expanded into hamburgers in 1940 and grew to 500 locations by 1974 before Hershey’s bought it in 1979. Hershey’s sold the brand nine years later, and by the mid-1990s it had swelled to about 850 restaurants.

The decline that followed was steep. Friendly’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011 and again in November 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic gutted dine-in revenue. Amici Partners Group, an affiliate of Brix Holdings, bought the chain out of that second bankruptcy for about $2 million. Today, The Takeout reports the surviving locations are concentrated in Massachusetts, which alone accounts for 22 of the 87 restaurants — about a quarter of what’s left.

Barbara E. Kahn, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told Fox News Digital that some Friendly’s locations had grown “old and tired” and failed to keep pace with dining trends. Still, Ms. Kahn said there’s “a lot of life left” in the brand, arguing its nostalgia value — sundaes, family booths, a fun-food reputation built over generations — is an asset the company can build on if it also modernizes its menu with more plant-based and healthy options.

That modernization push now falls to Brix Holdings’ newest owner. Franchise Times reported that Amol Kohli — founder of Legacy Brands International — acquired Brix last summer in a deal the trade outlet valued below $50 million; terms were not otherwise disclosed. Franchise Times also reported that Mr. Kohli’s connection to the brand runs deep: he started as a 15-year-old dishwasher and waiter at a Philadelphia Friendly’s making $5 an hour, and before buying the parent company he operated 31 Friendly’s locations himself as one of the chain’s largest franchisees.

“It’s just gone full circle for me,” Mr. Kohli said of the acquisition.

Brix Holdings — whose combined brands, including Clean Juice, Red Mango, Smoothie Factory, Souper Salad, Humble Donut Co. and Orange Leaf, span more than 250 locations in 40 states, per Franchise Times — says it’s focused on rolling out smaller, modern restaurant prototypes alongside existing-store remodels to reverse Friendly’s decades-long slide, which has wiped out nearly 90% of its store count since the mid-1990s peak.