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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Lifestyle
Lee Grimsditch

Greater Manchester's first TGI Fridays was unlike anything customers had seen before

The late 1980s and early '90s saw a flood of American themed fast-food diners and bars open up across the UK.

And while the likes of McDonald's had long established itself on the UK's high streets by this time, the country's appetite for the taste of US cuisine had only become more ravenous. Another chain that made it to these shores was TGI Fridays, which first opened in New York in 1965 by founder Alan Stillman to help celebrate the weekend, hence its name standing for 'Thank God It's Friday.'

Derived originally from the US singles bar culture, it was a place where barmen and women showed off their amazing juggling tricks or "flares", by pouring drinks into shakers from a great height or tossing bottles to each other. But as the chain developed into the late '80s, the focus of the bar/restaurants switched from singles to families.

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