After decades of service in Marlton, our hometown TGI Fridays, located in Greentree Plaza, permanently shut its doors as part of an abrupt mass closing of 36 locations worldwide on Jan. 2, 2024. Although it was just another chain restaurant in a town that contains so many others, the loss of Fridays is devastating to the community of Marlton and the lives of Cherokee High School students.
Fridays on Route 73 was open from 11 in the morning to about 2 in the morning on weekends. Being one of the last restaurants to close every night, Fridays has been a gathering spot for many Cherokee students for years. After school dances, musical performances, competitions, meets, and other events, it is almost guaranteed that there will be multiple tables of Cherokee students enjoying a Fridays meal and each other’s company.
Besides the late hours, Marlton’s Fridays can easily become a home to many students and locals because of the welcoming atmosphere among the staff. Sam Donato (24’), a Cherokee student who was working at Fridays at the time, said that she “started working there around the end of November, and honestly, everyone was so welcoming and helpful right away… the entire atmosphere of Fridays was just fantastic and I had been going there with friends on my own for a while, so it’s really easy to feel comfort in that place.”
Donato found out Fridays was closing through her friends and her parents before her manager or any other member of the staff informed her. “It was a very last-minute thing that happened… they got the news the morning of needing to close down.” Most staff were transferred to other Fridays locations.
Another Cherokee student who was affected by the closing of Fridays was a senior named Paige Drummond, whose friends would go out to eat there almost once a month. To Drummond, who despite finding its closing surreal, is “glad that I got to experience Fridays, especially with my friends and our amazing waiter, Ethan, from my sophomore year until my senior year of high school. Every time we were there, I would always remark how happy I was that we had a hang-out spot, like in one of those high school movies. I’m glad I got to experience that with some of the best people I’ve ever met.”
Although the loss of Fridays is a surprise for many, it is not entirely shocking. Despite the restaurant and staff being known to be phenomenal, there were certain factors, like a hole in the ceiling of the girl’s bathroom, that made Marlton’s Fridays less than desirable. However, none of these qualities stopped the restaurant from being a favorite for Marlton residents.
In the end, the loss of Fridays is devastating to the Cherokee High School community, which is now looking for new places to come together after events. As Sam Donato said in her interview, Fridays “was honestly like a second home to a lot of us, so it was really depressing to have it go down.” The closing of Fridays is a loss for the Marlton community, especially the students at Cherokee High School, and we are sad to see it go.
