Kyiv can wave goodbye to TGI Fridays in the heart of the city in Besarabska Square. After 13 years of margaritas, fajitas and burgers, the restaurant closed its doors on Nov. 2.
Operated by the restaurant holding of Moscow-based Rostik
Group under a licensing agreement with the American company, the eatery
preserved the chain’s classical Americana grub and atmosphere where each visit
was supposed to feel like the beginning of the weekend.
Since its opening in 2002, it won the hearts of many Kyivans
and attracted expatriates longing for familiar food, which came in large
portions at reasonable prices.
Rosinter Restaurants has been folding its operations in
Ukraine for the past two years, closing the rest of its venues before making
the final step of shutting down the restaurant on Besarabska Square.
Rosinter also owned IL Patio, an Italian restaurant next
door to TGI Fridays. Both places closed on Nov. 2 without any explanation to customers
except for a door sign reading: “Sorry, we’re closed.”
On Nov. 4 the Kyiv Post witnessed at least five moving trucks
leaving Besarabska Square, where the restaurants were located.
The phone numbers for the restaurants and the Ukrainian office
of Rosinter are out of service.
The Moscow office of
Rosinter declined to comment on the closing of its Ukrainian businesses to the
Kyiv Post. In a news release sent in August, Sergey Zaitsev, CEO of Rosinter
Restaurants, said that the first half of 2015 was “a very hard time for the
company.”
In 1997 Rosinter obtained a license to open TGI Fridays
restaurants in the former Soviet Union, including the Baltic countries and
Finland, opening the first such eatery in Moscow the same year.
The TGI Fridays in Besarabska Square was the last surviving
restaurant of the chain in Ukraine. Two restaurants, one in Dnipropetrovsk and
the other in Boryspil Airport’s Terminal F, closed in 2013 and 2014,
respectively.
In 2013, Rosinter Ukraine ran 16 restaurants, including the
chains TGI Fridays, IL Patio, Planeta Sushi and Costa Coffee.
Olga Nasonova, head of Restaurant Consulting Company, told
the Kyiv Post that the restaurants were closed because of financial problems that
the Ukrainian unit of Rosinter faced in Ukraine. She added that the Ukrainian unit had had problems
in business for a long time already.
One reason, according to the expert, were communication
problems between offices in Moscow and in Kyiv. Staff at the centrally located
TGI Fridays weren’t being trained and that the restaurant hadn’t been renovated
for a long time, so its popularity fell.
“The hryvnia (currency) has dropped against the dollar. So
did the profits of TGI Fridays and IL Patio. For comparison, an average check
in these restaurants in Ukraine was $7-8 per person. And in Russia it is
$20-25,” said Nasonova.
She added that the lease rates in Besarabska Square was one
of the highest in Kyiv, forcing the Rosinter restaurants out.
Nasonova noted that decision to close the restaurants had nothing
to do with politics.
“If the war in Donbas and the tense relations between Russia
and Ukraine were the reasons, they would have shut down the restaurants a year
ago, I suppose,” she said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika
Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]
