Oh, no! Poor Butters!

[spatch]

Have you ever been to Bennigan's, Mister? Oh, it sure is great. I'm goin' to Bennigan's tomorrow night with my family. Oh, I can just see it now. We'll walk in the front doors, and the nice Bennigan's hostess lady will take us to our cozy booth, and then we'll order some mozzarella sticks for appetizers. Dad will open his present, and Mom will open hers, uh then the Bennigan's wait staff will sing:

Happy Happy Anniversary from everyone at Bennigan's
Happy Happy Anniversary-eh from everyone at Bennigan's
Happy Happy Anniversary from everyone at Bennigan's
Happy Ha... whoa, are we stoppin' for sodas? Hey, can I have chocolate milk?

The Bennigan's restaurant chain has closed after its parent company files for bankruptcy. That's, like, every single restaurant in the chain, closed and locked up.

I'm not sure how much of a tear I can shed for a chain restaurant with food like every other chain restaurant of its ilk, but man, every restaurant just closing up like that is harsh.

Comments

[limax.livejournal.com]

Dang. We used to go to the one quite a bit near Great America. Now we'll have to find some other collection-full American-type theme restaurant to go to.

[rosalux.livejournal.com]

At one point, my whole resume was full of jobs where Reason for Leaving was "store closed" "division shut down" "company discontinued operations". Except for Penneys, where it was "found better job" but for references "No one I worked with including my supervisor, manager, and the store manager is there any longer."

It's getting like that again - they've laid off 1/3 of the people who worked at the Strib when I was there, and they'd downsized a good chunk more before that.

It's a terrible thing to show up for work one morning and find the placed locked and dark.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Oh NO! Where will I be able to get potato skins and chicken fingers now?

(Weep not for their employees, for they will go next door to Chili's forthwith.)

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

Aw man. I rather liked Bennigans. Luckily there's a Rock Bottom not 30 feet from the one I used to go to.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Wow, has any other chain ever declared bankruptcy and shuttered all their stores/restaurants this fast?

Oh wait, wasn't there something funky with Ground Round suddenly closing without even warning their employees the next day a few years back?

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

Chi-Chi's comes to mind.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

i wondered what happened to ground round.

[pecosy.livejournal.com]

If it were Crapplebees or Fridays closing I won't care. I think because I only went to Bennigans in high school (french fries and ranch oh yeah) and not much since I have a warm fuzzy associations with the place. Though I guess people not going much in 15 years is part of the reason they went under. Poor Fergus Dargle!

[pecosy.livejournal.com]

Apparently the same company also owned a chain called "Steak & Ale" which sounds fantastic. Bummer.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's too bad, Steak and Ale actually wasn't a bad little chain steakhouse.

Eccomi!

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

According to the local paper, our Bennigan's is remaining open, much to my utter indifference. If anyone's dead set on a grilled chicken caesar salad and you can't find it anywhere else, ya'll are welcome to come to Memphis and hit Bennigan's.

[brak55.livejournal.com]

The article I saw said the corporate owned locations were closing but the franchisee's didn't have to. Of course, I would expect there might be a name change in their future.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

"O'Secretary's--The Home of Office Liasons."

[qxam.livejournal.com]

I think Chi-Chi's went away fairly precipitously after the food poisoning thing.

Speaking of which, I don't know if the Bennigan's down the street is staying open or not, and don't much care since it's universally infamous around here for constant health code violations. It's too bad, because I like soup, but not soup that has spent 12 hours at room temperature.

[rosalux.livejournal.com]

food poisoning thing? man, i miss all the good stuff.

I loved Chi-Chi's when I was a kid. Now, we get almost the exact same Americanized food at a local dive where all the waitresses have visible tattoos & they will serve you a fried burrito full of chocolate and covered with ice cream & whipped cream and syrup.

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

There were two places around here you could get a burger with a pretzel bun: Bennigan's and Fox & Hound. The Fox & Hound closed a few months ago, and now what the hell am I supposed to do?

[hemlock-martini.livejournal.com]

Recently we had a Loco's open close to our house; from the outside I had pegged it as a crazy-crap-on-the-walls family feedbag joint. Imagine my shock when we tried it out and there was no crazy crap on the walls. It felt practically austere. Clinical, even. Sterile.

The unbuffered echoes from the sound of me chewing my asian buffalo riblet puffs as they bounced off the bare walls was deafening.

The echoes. Not the asian buffalo riblet puffs.

[cheezdanish.livejournal.com]

TOTALLY off topic, but I seem to recall that you did a thing on spatch dot net aaaaages ago about the 'potential' Foundation movie.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080729/film_nm/foundation_dc

YOU ARE LIKE JOHNNY CARSON IN HIS TURBAN-WEARING BIT WHICH I CANNOT REMEMBER THE NAME OF AT THIS SPLIT SECOND DARN IT

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Carnac The Magnificent?

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

I have an odd nostalgia for the place. I remember when they first opened up, when I was a wee one. I vaguely remember finding myself in there, eating mozzarella sticks, and it was my first introduction to the idea of stopping at a bar and getting hammered with co-workers after quitting time.

Ah, such days.

[ron_newman]

Didn't this happen to Ground Round a few years ago?

[ron_newman]

Can we snark the journalist while we're here?

employees of Bennigan's report that company-owned franchises are closed nationwide as of Tuesday

If it's "company-owned" then it's not a "franchise".

[she-parser.livejournal.com]

I've been inside a Bennigan's exactly once and I can barely remember it. The chain restaurant I do miss, though, is Chi-Chi's - not just for the nostalgia but for the Fried Ice Cream that very few places seem to emulate.

[campion7.livejournal.com]

Waaahhh! Bennigan's has actually been a big part of my life.

Back in Chicago, friends and I would meet up at the local Bennigan's for some sort of meal before heading out to wreck whatever havoc we could.

In fact, my friend Leanne and I went there for lunch one day so that I could do a project for one of my classes. We walked in, silent and pretended we were deaf the entire time to see what would happen. We signed and wrote notes to the waitress, who was very nice and accommodating to us and we conversed in sign language throughout the meal.

It's interesting the things people will say when they think you can't hear them. "I think they're sisters. The blonde one seems to be the older and the fat one is probably the younger." It was a good thing my back was to the guy speaking or the jig would have been up, just by the pissed off expression on my face. At that point, Leanne was frantically signing to me, "Calm down, calm down. Take it easy." I was signing back every insult I could think of, from questioning this guy's parentage to things he could do to himself with his utensils. (Yes, the TAs in my sign language class were willing to teach the signs for any kind of colorful language we asked about.)

Ah yes, memories of Bennigan's. I miss that place already.