Karen Forrester, chief executive of TGI Friday’s, has told MCA the company’s first smaller footprint site was “absolutely flying” but said its flagship Leicester Square restaurant had yet to meet expectations.
The group opened a 5,000 sq ft site in Walsall six weeks ago and Forrester said that while its performance was still being evaluated, she was excited by the potential the format offered in terms of site flexibility.
She said while half the estate had broken sales records in the first week of January the year so far had been “sporadic”. She said she expected the impact of the Brussels terror attacks to affect trade over the Easter weekend.
She said: “We are now at 75 sites and 32 of our restaurants broke their all-time sales records in the first week of January.
“There were a couple of things we didn’t expect over Christmas. One was Black Friday. Without a doubt that affected the big shopping centres. That softened Christmas somewhat. But the standalones and the retail centres performed very strongly.
“It’s been a bit sporadic since then. We’re having a fantastic week this week because the kids are out. I would expect that in the wake of the attacks on Brussels, trade is going to be hit. It’s difficult to say how much of an impact that will have.”
On the smaller footprint stores, she said: “It’s early days but Walsall has absolutely flown so far.
“The key thing we’ve noticed so far is the effect on drink sales. We’re up to about 30% whereas the rest of the estate is more like 25%.
“It bodes very well for us in terms of going into secondary locations because even at 75 sites we’re relatively small for a national brand.
“It means we can look again at locations and sites that we would previously have discounted. I suppose the question is how low can we go and still be able to distill the Fridays experience.”
On Leicester Square, she said: “We opened in December, not long after the Paris attacks, which really dented trade in London. It’s hard to see through the effects of that and we’ve always known that from Easter onwards would be the time to really gauge its performance because nothing much really happens in Leicester Square in the winter.
“It hasn’t reached our expectations yet but we’re looking forward to spring.”
