In 1965, Alan Stillman founded the first Friday’s® restaurant in New York City.

According to Newsweek and The Saturday Evening Post, the opening of the first Friday’s restaurant heralded the dawn of the singles age.

Friday’s restaurants have been the employer of several well-known celebrities - Kathy Mattea, Sean Patrick Flannery of “Young Indiana Jones” and Brad Garrett of “Everybody Loves Raymond”.

Friday’s restaurants have a long history of innovation, including being credited with:
• Naming ‘happy hour’.
• Inventing the Long Island Iced Tea and Loaded Potato Skins.
• Popularizing frozen and ice cream drinks.
• Pioneering non-alcoholic Smoothies and Flings in honor of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

The Friday’s restaurant is synonymous with ‘flair bartending’. In the mid 1980s, the restaurant created the first World Bartender Championships to honor the famous, trend-setting, bottle-tossing style of Friday’s bartenders around the globe. This tradition continues today!

From roller skating to singing to buttons and suspenders to showing off our ‘flair’, Friday’s employees are legendary for providing the best America has to offer in service and atmosphere.

Friday’s red and white stripes are one of the most recognized restaurant trademarks in the world, next to the Golden Arches.

The Friday’s brand was the first casual dining restaurant chain to offer stone-ground whole wheat bread, avocados, bean sprouts and Mexican appetizers.

In 2003, T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant was the first national casual dining restaurant chain to partner with Atkins Nutritional Approach® to offer low carb menu items.

In the past 40 years Friday’s restaurants have:

• SERVED APPROXIMATELY 185,380,000 GUESTS IN MORE THAN 700 RESTAURANTS IN 54 COUNTRIES!

• SERVED 19,800,000 HAMBURGERS...WHICH IS EQUAL TO OVER 9,900,000 POUNDS OF BURGER!

• WENT THROUGH 69,522,520 POUNDS OF FRENCH-FRIED POTATOES, 8,634,436 POUNDS OF CHICKEN WINGS, 454,784 DOZEN EGGS AND 114,207,632 OUNCES OF KETCHUP!