87 restaurants in 11 Eastern states is all that remains of Friendly's, the Springfield, Massachusetts family-dining chain that peaked at roughly 850 locations in the mid-1990s. The contraction represents 90% of the store base. Amici Partners Group, LLC acquired the chain out of its second bankruptcy in 2021, inheriting what it described as a 130-store restaurant chain; the current count has since slipped to 87. Barbara E. Kahn, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, told Fox News Digital there is "a lot of life left" in the brand.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Peak locations (mid-1990s, reported) | ~850 |
| Current locations (reported) | 87 |
| States with locations | 11 |
| Massachusetts locations | 22 (approx. 25%) |
| Closure rate (reported) | 90% |
Building to 500 restaurants
Prestley Blake, then 20, and his brother Curtis, then 18, opened the first "Friendly" ice-cream shop in Springfield in 1935, selling double-dip cones for 5 cents during the Great Depression. A second location followed in 1940, with hamburgers among the first food additions to the menu. By 1951, 10 restaurants were operating across Massachusetts and Connecticut. By 1974 the count had reached 500, spread across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and by the mid-1990s the chain had grown to roughly 850 locations.
Hershey's acquired Friendly's from the Blake brothers in 1979 and sold the chain to Tennessee Restaurant Company nine years later. The chain set a Guinness World Record for the largest sundae in 1980 and added the apostrophe and "s" to its name in 1989. It also began distributing its ice cream through supermarkets.
Two bankruptcies and the path to 87
Friendly's filed for bankruptcy in 2011, then again in November 2020. George Michel, then CEO, cited the pandemic in the second filing: dine-in revenue collapsed when operations ceased for months and reopened at limited capacity. He also pointed to shifting demographics and rising costs as underlying pressures.
The 87 surviving locations sit below the 130-unit count Amici cited when it took over. Twenty-two of those locations, about 25% of the total, are in Massachusetts. Friendly's marked its 90th year in business in 2025.
Kahn described the brand's ice-cream legacy as an asset, calling it "positive DNA" that current nostalgia trends in restaurants could amplify. She pointed to McDonald's as a chain that maintained relevance by adjusting its menu. Adding non-meat items and salads could possibly help Friendly's attract new customers, she said. Friendly's had not responded to a request for comment as of publication.