In memoriam: Boston’s last surviving Friendly’s has closed
Logan Airport has a decent selection of dining options (particularly if you’re a fan of Legal Sea Foods). Still, I inevitably went to Friendly’s Ice Cream whenever I was in Terminal A.
The food at the Logan Friendly’s wasn’t exceptional. In fact, it was quite terrible, and they were usually out of everything on the menu except for room-temperature chicken tenders and French fries. Despite this, I’d still excitedly seek out Friendly’s, place my order, eat the interminable chicken tenders and damp fries, and then regret it an hour later while in the air.
I was devoted to Friendly’s for the comfort it provided at the airport. If I was getting on a plane to another city, I craved that bump of nostalgia before exploring a new corner of the United States. Plus, the heartburn was included at no additional charge.
Then it was gone. Another relic of my childhood had disappeared. When I arrived last month to grab a pre-departure Fribble, my semi-beloved Terminal A Friendly’s was unceremoniously boarded up.
Soon, it will be a Buffalo Wild Wings. There will be no more SuperMelts or Big Beef burgers in Boston, although, to be fair, they never seemed to be in stock. The Friendly’s at Logan opened in 2015 and was the last outpost of the chain operating within the city. (Insert snide remarks here about Boston no longer being a friendly city.)
There are still more than two dozen Friendly’s in Massachusetts. The Wilbraham-based chain has a total of 105 locations along the East Coast (primarily in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania). Still, it’s a far cry from the Happy Ending halcyon days when there were more than 800 restaurants
The last Friendly’s in Boston has closed, but the memories created over ice cream have yet to melt away
with the familiar cupola and weathervane dotting the landscape. Usually, I would write something like, “The past two decades have been a rocky road for Friendly’s,” but they no longer serve rocky road. How about “Friendly’s presence is melting faster than a cone of rum raisin on an August afternoon”? Strike that. They don’t sell rum raisin either.
The closing of the Logan location isn’t a surprise — it was ranked 228 on a TripAdvisor list of 229 places in Boston to get a quick bite — but it stings because it’s the end of an era in Boston. When the Logan Friendly’s opened in April 2015 with a splashy ceremony, then-Mayor Marty Walsh was in attendance, and then-Friendly’s CEO John Maguire told the Globe that the Terminal A location would ensure steady traffic for Friendly’s.
“The beauty of it is that there will be 7 million people walking right past our location,” Maguire said. “It really is a prime location.”
Maguire was right. People did walk right past Friendly’s, but not enough of them stopped. As we’ve learned from Papa Gino’s, Bertucci’s, Boston Market, and Brigham’s, nostalgia does not equal profit. Aside from a few sentimental fools like myself, people eventually give up on a place when the food, service, and selection are not up to snuff.
Friendly’s, which began in 1935 as Friendly Ice Cream in Springfield, was founded by brothers Prestley and Curtis Blake during the Great Depression with a loan of $547 from their parents. According to Prestley Blake’s 2011 biography, “A Friendly Life,” the company was approaching 600 restaurants and annual sales of $200 million by the late 1970s.
“If I had my way, I’d have kept growing and growing until we had 2,000 restaurants,” Blake wrote. “I was sure I had the drive and the ability to run a company that size.”
Those were the years that most of us who grew up in the Northeast found ourselves at Friendly’s enjoying crinkle fries, square burgers served on toast, and crispy Fishamajig sandwiches. When I was a teenager, the Fribbles were flowing freely and my friends and I gathered at Friendly’s after going to the movies or the mall. When they stopped serving peppermint stick ice cream year round and made it a seasonal flavor, I launched a letter writing campaign. How dare they restrict access to peppermint stick and relegate it to holiday Jubilee Roll status?
The memories of all that whipped cream and hot fudge propelled me to the Friendly’s at Terminal A. I chose to cling to those fading vestiges rather than follow the sad news of the restaurant’s decline. The Blake brothers sold Friendly’s to Hershey in 1979 for $164 million. That sale birthed the wondrous era of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup sundae and the mammoth Reese’s Pieces sundae. Hershey did well with Friendly’s. So well, in fact, that in 1988, it sold the chain of 850 restaurants to the Tennessee Restaurant Company for about $375 million.
The Tennessee Restaurant Company officially changed the name from Friendly to Friendly’s and the company debuted on the NASDAQ in 1997. But a series of feuds, lawsuits, and a dust-up between the Tennessee Restaurant Company and the Blake brothers drove down stock prices. By 2007, the chain was purchased by Sun Capital Partners Inc. for $337 million.
From there, Friendly’s faced a steady string of losses and closures before finally declaring bankruptcy in 2011. In 2019 the grocery division of Friendly’s declared bankruptcy, and the restaurant followed with another round of bankruptcy in 2020. The company has been passed around more than a church collection plate as it changed hands between CEOs and corporate owners. In 2021 it was acquired by a group of restaurant investors for a staggeringly low $2 million.
It now feels as if Friendly’s is being stripped for parts. There have been some attempts to revive the brand with “concept” locations (quotation marks used to denote eye-rolling), but so far these new designs have either closed or failed to gain traction with diners.
The brand’s current owners, Brix Holdings, are trying to find people interested in opening Friendly’s franchises in the south, particularly Texas. Brix is based in Dallas, so the Texas focus makes sense.
“We are making Friendly’s great again with a new, upgraded, and improved Friendly’s 2.0.,” the company’s website reads in its pitch to potential franchisees. “We are recapturing the childhood hearts and stomachs from the 88 years.”
Best of luck to Friendly’s, its parent company, Brix Holdings, and Brix’s parent company, an investment company called Amici Holdings Group. I’d love to see Friendly’s back to its former glory, or at least reopened at Logan with better food.
I no longer live near a Friendly’s, so I’ve officially moved on to Cabot’s in Newton. It’s a place that isn’t a subsidiary of a holdings company and no one needs to make it great again. It’s already wonderful. Most importantly, they serve peppermint stick ice cream year-round.