Overpriced food, overly friendly service, and - time and time again - getting their lunch handed to them by 800-pound gorilla TGI Friday's.
Talk to management of any of the three completely interchangeable, instantly forgettable restaurants, and you hear a similar refrain: enough was enough. Now they're doing something about it.
In what experts are calling the largest merger ever in the food and beverage industry, Houston's, Chili's, and Bennigan's will close their doors immediately and by early August, reopen under the new "Hooligans" brand name.
The new, "no-nonsense" logo
The new restaurant, in an attempt to shed the humdrum, dime-a-dozen personality of its three predecessors, will be known for its value-priced menu, served to customers by an uncaring, belligerent staff.
"We'd just gotten fed up with being the red-headed stepchild [in the restaurant business]", commented Frank diPizio, COO, of Bennigan's Inc. "As it turns out, I ran into some executives from Chili's and Houston's at a recent trade show. Maybe we'd had a little too much to drink, but after a few hours of griping at the hotel bar, we said we had to do something. Friday's has been kicking our ass for years. And 'Hooligans', I am proud to say, is the result of not wanting to be kicked around anymore."
The new corporate management team is interviewing regional managers now and hopes to have staff in place at each Hooligans location by mid-July. A three-week training course will ensue. After a team-building trip to get their heads shaved, prospective waiters will then be trained in such areas as staredowns, smashing people over the head cleanly with beer bottles, and affecting indecipherable cockney accents. They'll also learn how to carry a large tray of food while blindingly drunk.
Not everyone is convinced.
"If they think they can con the American public into eating greasy fried food in a sterile setting with a staff that couldn't care less about them, they've got another thing coming" said Brian Murphy, General Manager of the Appleby's on Main St. in Morristown, NJ.
Meet the new waitstaff at Hooligans'
flagship location in Times Square, NYC!
One woman seemed to be in favor of the new idea. "It sounds great!", offers Pam Snodgrass of Bergen County, NJ, mother of 4 boys. "Not only do I get to save a couple bucks, but if any of my own little 'hooligans' acts up, I can ask for an assist from one of the waiters. Personally, I'm excited."
Company officials expect that just under 1500 restaurants will be opened under the Hooligans name in August, with another 100 opening by year's end.
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