Friendly's owner files for bankruptcy

Friendly Ice Cream Corp., the Wilbraham, Mass., company whose Friendly's restaurants are a familiar destination for parents and kids on Long Island, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday.

The bankruptcy filing means the company will reorganize its finances, but it doesn't mean it will be closing most of its restaurants, which will continue to operate. Friendly said it secured $70 million in financing, and that 424 of its restaurants will stay open and pay employee salaries and benefits.

Though Friendly said it closed 63 of its restaurants nationwide as part of the filing, all 33 Friendly's restaurants on Long Island will remain open, the company said. Ronkonkoma-based J&B Restaurant Partners is the company's franchisee on Long Island. J&B also owns another 33 of the restaurants elsewhere in the New York City metro market.

Rich Tauberman, a spokesman for parent company Friendly, said Wednesday Long Island is "a great market for us, a bright spot." He said J&B will continue with its previously announced plan to expand by opening new Friendly's outlets on the Island.

The 76-year-old parent company, known for its ice cream and hamburgers, is one of several restaurant chains to file for bankruptcy as consumers eat out less, a habit they picked up during the recession. Friendly said the economic downturn coupled with higher costs and high rents drove it to file for Chapter 11 protection.

The company said its closure of 63 restaurants nationwide would result in the loss of about 1,200 jobs. Friendly now employs about 9,000 workers. Friendly opened at the height of the Great Depression with one shop in Springfield, Mass. The company's bankruptcy filing, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., comes four years after it was bought by private-equity firm Sun Capital Partners Inc.

With news service reports