According to the Dallas/Ft. Worth NBC affiliate station, Bennigan's, a nationwide restaurant chain with nearly 800 locations, is closing the doors on all their stores, effective immediately. Calls to the the national headquarters, located in Plano, TX, are going unanswered and managers have been asked to call their staff members to tell them not to come in.
Upon hearing that they were shutting down, I placed a call to Philadelphia's local Bennigan's. My call was answered on the second ring, and while there was definitely noise of activity on the other end of the line, the woman who answered my call confirmed that they were closed for business as well.
I've never eaten at a Bennigan's, so I can't speak to the food, but my heart does go out to all the people who will lose their jobs because of this closure. How do the rest of you feel about the sudden closing of this chain?
7-29-2008 @12:21PM Big John said... Maybe something worthwhile will go into where it used to be. Sucks to lose jobs just like that but I think it's for the best.
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7-29-2008 @12:38PM LinC said... Bennigan's tried twice in our market and closed both times. Their menu did not keep up with the times, and the restaurant business is crowded with alternatives. I feel sorry for all the cooks and waitstaff that will be losing their jobs. It's a tough business.
I'll bet a lot of restaurants will be feeling the double pinch of higher food costs and more people eating at home because of high gas prices.
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7-29-2008 @12:39PM Joe O. said... Interesting to note that Bennigans is owned by a parent company "metromedia restaurant group" which also owns ponderosas and steak 'n ales. It appears as of right now that all of these websites are down and calls to my locals (Kissimmee, FL) go unanswered...
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7-29-2008 @12:48PM Jeff D. said... Bennigans thrived during my college days in the '70s, but never seemed to pull itself out of that era. I haven't eaten there in many years, but the food was forgettable.
Though I'm not a fan of TGI Friday's either, Bennigans was cut from the same cloth -- overly-done concept restaurant that had no real identity when it came to its food. Job losses are always tough to swallow, but I suspect customers won't miss it.
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7-29-2008 @12:47PM Jeff D. said... Bennigans thrived during my college days in the '70s, but never seemed to pull itself out of that era. I haven't eaten there in many years, but the food was forgettable.
Though I'm not a fan of TGI Friday's either, Bennigans was cut from the same cloth -- overly-done concept restaurant that had no real identity when it came to its food. Job losses are always tough to swallow, but I suspect customers won't miss it.
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7-29-2008 @1:00PM Lindsey said... Re: LinC's comment, "I'll bet a lot of restaurants will be feeling the double pinch of higher food costs and more people eating at home because of high gas prices."
There's an article in the NYT today about how some manufacturers like Kraft Foods are reporting higher earnings, presumably because more people are choosing to eat in these days.
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7-29-2008 @1:01PM Jeremy Streem said... I worked for Ponderosa (A Metromedia Restaurant) in the 90's and the parent company has certainly declined in recent years. Almost all of their corporate restaurants were sold off to franchise owners. I'm guessing that a hands-off approach and corporate mismanagement of their franchises has caused MRG to close up shop. Bennigan's was probably their nationwide flagship and if it failed, then everything is probably finished.
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7-29-2008 @1:23PM Todd said... see WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121734771456393641.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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7-29-2008 @1:36PM Eric Hopp said... I always enjoyed Bennigan's back in the 80's and upon moving to DFW my wife and I were excited to see them again, but the food was pretty bad when compared to other places like TGI Fridays. Some co-workers and I started to go there for lunch over the past few months when they were offering their $4.99 "Lunch Crunch" which had 12 items and a drink for that price. Seriously, try and find another place where you can get that kind of food for that price. Even McDonald's isn't that cheap anymore. The place was packed every time we went and you actually had to wait to be seated for lunch. We often discussed how they could afford to give you the same meal that places like TGI Fridays could for $4 less. I guess they were hoping to get people into the place and a few weeks ago they discontinued the "Lunch Crunch" with the exception of burgers. The quality was slowly improving at the particular one in Arlington TX we went to, though still not on par with Fridays. What a shame.
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7-29-2008 @6:34PM Emily said... This is a shame for all the people that worked at Bennigans Restaurants. The food was decent but pretty much similar to TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, or Applebees. Decent food, decent prices, but nothing remarkable.
The parent company, Metromedia Restaurants, seems to be having some problems lately. The Steak 'n' Ale restaurant that was in Jackson, MS seven years ago when I moved there closed down about five years ago, which was too bad because we enjoyed it. I've since moved to a rural area outside of Jackson and we have a terrific family-owned steak house that is on par with Outback Steak House and Lonestar Steak House--or maybe even better. And it's basically in the middle of nowhere! So now I don't miss Steak 'n' Ale at all, really...It's still a shame for the people that worked there, although I'm sure they've all gone on to other things since then...
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7-29-2008 @2:24PM Malaine said... I really feel sorry for the workers, I have a cousin who works for Bennigan's in Louisiana and I don't think she even knows about this, I called the location she works at and they seemed to be open.
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7-29-2008 @2:39PM Malaine said... I really feel sorry for the workers, who been there for years. I really feel for my cousin who works for Bennigan's in Louisiana. I don't think she knows what has happened. I called the location she works at and they seemed to be open.
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7-29-2008 @2:58PM Paula Helm Murray said... I feel sorry for the workers, but the only time I ever ate at the only one (as far as I could tell) in Kansas City, it was the same kind of menu as Houlihans, Friday's and Applebees but with less pizzaz.
They closed a long time ago,
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7-29-2008 @3:57PM lizandrsn said... Sad for the workers.
Happy for anyone that's eaten at the one here. I swear they were serving pre-packaged airline food. Only worse. You couldn't ask for anything that didn't appear on the menu as written 0 they just couldn't do it. And if you dare bring anyone under 18 with you? My God! The travesty! They've seat you by the kitchen and ignore you.
On the upside, I never had to figure beyond a 10% tip.
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7-29-2008 @4:16PM laura said... Bennigans was the Sh*t in high school late 80's early 90's. We would go there and get fried mushrooms, the "monte cristo" and death by chocolate! I stopped going there around 93, and was forced to go for lunch about a year ago, it was disgusting and i knew the end was near! What are they going to do with all the crap on the walls?
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7-29-2008 @5:32PM Former Employee said... I worked for bennigans until today. I was planning on working tonight when I got a call saying we were closed. As I read the comments posted before mine, it seems that many people were not thrilled with the chain. I would just like to point out that in this country people are always looking for the newest bigger better faster and cheaper place when it comes to restaurants or anything. "It was awesome in the 70's/80's," seems to be the common vote. Well thats because it was a new/newer company then, it was a new place to try, so people went.
All of these chains TGI, Applebees,Chilli's and whatever else is to come. Do you really think that ALL of them will be standing forever? Bennigans had a long run. As a former employee i can vouch to say that there were loyal guests that I would see every week. Some people even traveled out of their way to our location for our food and service. For every indifferent person,there has to be at least one dissapointed guest that wont be able to get their "monte" or whatever it was that kept them coming back. As for the employees, there ARE other chains, and it is apparent that all of the former employees will be dispersed elsewhere. However, it is crazy to wake up one morning and the job you thought you have just dosen't exist anymore.
As a former employee I can finally say when it comes to the "cash crunch lunch" and all of the promotions and coupons we had...well it was to bring in guests and not give away food for free... so thanks to all the people that helped that along...thats how companies lose money...you may get mad when you dont get your discount..or that your 4.99 burger came out with cold fries,(c'mon its 4.99,just ask for new fries) You forget that it's a buisness(not your kitchen at home), that your server is a person, not a servant; and that its their job... thats their livelihood.
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7-29-2008 @5:54PM Austin Chu said... I work for a company that manages and tracks gift cards, and I've been following retailers filing for bankruptcy on savvywallet.com. Ponderosa and Bonanza are still accepting Metromedia gift cards. I'm not sure about franchise owned Bennigans's. My advice? Go spend your gift cards, we simply do not know how long they will be accepting them. Don't forget The Sharper Image incident: $25m in unused gift cards.
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7-29-2008 @7:41PM Rt said... I was in Dallas when Norman Brinker started the Steak & Ale chain. I also got to enjoy the beginnings of the Chili's chain (a shack of a house that served as much beer as food, by comely waitresses I might add). I believe Dallas also had the 'Black Eyed Pea' (same kind of house that looked like it should be condemned) around that time (this is thirty years ago). Oh yeah, Grandy's was also started in the Dallas area around that time (I was in the area 20 years, off and on).
To my knowledge all of these were sold to large corporations 'who could expand them'. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Once the penny pinchers move in then they compete as a commodity. They may have died sooner (competing on quality) but they would have died with dignity.
Sorry, got on my soap box a bit there.
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7-29-2008 @8:22PM OneIrishRover said... I ate at my first Bennigan's in Ormand Beach, Florida in 1982 and have eaten at others since, that I really did enjoy. Being Irish, I always loved the Irish themes and the Guinness on tap. I am sorry to hear that they are closing and have always hoped that one would open here in Asheville, NC where I live. Good luck to all of you who are about to lose your jobs. Maybe when they start taking all of the cool stuff off of the walls, they'll let you pick out something nice for yourselves. My friend bought an entire Don Pablo's when it closed and used it to make a bar in her house.
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7-29-2008 @11:19PM Ed T said... Few of the restaurants in this niche will survive because they simply can't charge prices that will allow them to stay in business. Who wants to spend $10 for an entre that is barely better than you'd get from the freezer section at a grocery store?
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