TGI Fridays permanently closed this week after 28 years in business at 6900 N. Illinois St., according to signage on the restaurant’s doors.
Calls to the location were not answered.
The shuttering of the Fairview Heights restaurant follows other recent closings.
TGI Fridays filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 2. Since the filing, the company closed 30 locations around the U.S., according to a Jan. 30 report posted on restaurantbusinessonline.com.
The same source reported on Feb. 3 that the company sold 19 additional restaurants as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, some of them to existing franchisees.
A Nov. 2 release issued by the company stated that TGI Fridays Franchisor LLC, which includes 56 franchisees in 41 countries, was not included in the Chapter 11 process since those locations are independently owned.
It is not yet clear if the Fairview Heights closing is a direct result of the bankruptcy. The BND has not yet received a response to an inquiry sent to TGI Fridays media relations.
TGI Fridays in Fairview Heights first opened on Jan. 20, 1997, and was situated inside a Ramada Inn that once stood at 6900 N. Illinois St.
A BND report from that time stated that the ground floor of the Ramada Inn was renovated to accommodate the metro-east’s first location, which took up 6,500 square feet.
In 2014, the building was demolished and replaced with a new 8,800-square-foot TGI Fridays restaurant that reopened on March 2, 2015.
The property is currently owned by Nilkanth Inc. of Bowling Green, Kentucky, according to St. Clair County tax records.
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