Friendly’s, the ice-cream-and-burger chain that started as a five-cent double-dip cone stand in Springfield, Massachusetts, has shrunk from a peak of roughly 850 locations to just 87 restaurants across 11 Eastern states.
The chain was founded in 1935 by brothers Prestley and Curtis Blake, then 20 and 18 years old, during the Great Depression. They opened a second location in 1940 and added hamburgers to the menu. By 1951 there were 10 Friendly restaurants in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and by 1974 the chain had grown to 500 locations across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Friendly’s celebrated its 90th year in business in 2025. Over the decades it introduced new menu items, began selling ice cream in supermarkets, set a Guinness World Record for the largest sundae in 1980, and added the apostrophe and ‘s’ to its name in 1989.
The company has changed ownership several times and filed for bankruptcy twice. Hershey’s bought Friendly’s from the Blake brothers in 1979 and sold it nine years later to Tennessee Restaurant Company; by the mid-1990s the chain had swelled to about 850 restaurants. Friendly’s filed for bankruptcy in 2011 and again in November 2020.
Then-CEO George Michel said in a 2020 news release that the company had been making progress reinvigorating the brand before the pandemic hit.
“Over the last two years, Friendly’s has made important strides toward reinvigorating our beloved brand in the face of shifting demographics, increased competition and rising costs. Unfortunately, like many restaurant businesses, our progress was suddenly interrupted by the catastrophic impact of COVID, which caused a decline in revenue as dine-in operations ceased for months and re-opened with limited capacity.”
In 2021, Amici Partners Group, LLC acquired Friendly’s, saying it was “dedicated to reinvigorating” what was then a 130-store chain.
Today, according to The Takeout, about 90% of Friendly’s restaurants have closed, leaving 87 locations in 11 Eastern states. Massachusetts, the chain’s birthplace, still has the most restaurants of any state, with 22 — about a quarter of the total.
Can the brand bounce back?
Barbara E. Kahn, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told Fox News Digital that some Friendly’s locations have come to be seen as dated and out of step with current dining trends. Still, she said there’s “a lot of life left” in the brand.
“It has a legacy that could be built on and could serve to bring people in, especially on this trend of nostalgia, which can be a plus in restaurants. But it also has to keep up with changing times and changing tastes.”
Kahn said Friendly’s has “positive DNA” it could draw on, pointing to the strong nostalgic pull of its ice-cream heritage and family-restaurant image.
“People who remember that brand from its heyday think of it as a fun place to go, a family restaurant known for its ice cream and fun food.”
She cited McDonald’s as an example of a legacy chain that has endured by adjusting its menu and offerings to changing tastes, and suggested Friendly’s could benefit from adding more non-meat items, healthy grains and salads to attract new customers.
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to Friendly’s for comment.
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