All 12 concept restaurants to close by end of March

Sod holdings, the parent company of T.G.I Friday's, says it is closing all 12 of it's T.G.I Monday's spin off restaurants. The restaurants were being test marketed in various locations throughout the pacific northwest as well as Gallup, New Mexico.

"It didn't catch on like we'd hoped." confessed Richard Amway, Sod holdings' frustrated head of marketing and new franchise development. "It turns out recreating the vibe of Monday morning isn't something the dining public is looking for at this time." he added.

The new concept restaurant was plagued with problems from the very beginning. From asking customers to fill out a time card and punch in before they could proceed past the entry vestibule to the alarm clocks at each table/cubicle set to go off every 8 minutes, it seems like the whole idea of a work place restaurant wasn't very well thought out.

Food critic Michelle Forshay shared her experiences with the short lived restaurant with us. Here is her review as she told it to me.

"Well, after punching in and being led to my table, which was a desk inside a brown cubicle, I was handed a stack of papers and told to go over them. Each item on the menu was on separate piece of paper, there must have been 100 sheets to deal with, it was a nightmare. The last 2 pages were excel spreadsheets with charts and graphs. You were supposed to use them to coordinate your toppings and side items." Mrs. Forshay stopped, dug around her purse for some ibuprofen and swallowed them without water before continuing. "It was hard to concentrate, to figure out what I wanted for an appetizer with the alarm clock going off every few minutes, I just wanted to go home and crawl back in bed." Then she added, "After I entered my order into the computer, I was paged to the cafeteria section of the restaurant and given my employee number to get my appetizer out of the vending machine. When I slid the window back on my order I noticed that the inside of the holding area was filthy, just like a real work place cafeteria microwave, I have to say that was an authentic touch. Just as I was sitting down to eat, a fire drill was announced and we all had to leave the restaurant in an orderly fashion. When I got back to my table/desk/workspace, half of my appetizer was eaten. I can't prove it, but I think it was the maintenance guy Donny." Michelle theorized. "When I called over a supervisor/waitress, she told me I would have to take it up with Bob in Human Resources, and that the time frame for ordering the main course had been pushed back indefinitely." At this point I could see that Michelle was clearly stressed from reliving her Monday/dining experience. I told her to take a deep breath and go on. "Well, Bob was in a meeting," she continued. "So I went back and cleaned out my desk. I was so mad I forgot to punch out when I left, not that it makes a difference since it's not real any way."

After hearing Mrs. Forshay's nightmare of a Monday which was actually a Thursday evening, I could see why the idea never caught on. "Our next venture will be much better." Richard Amway assured me. "Without giving too much away, I'll just tell you we're combining an outdoor patio lunch experience with a dental visit."

Bring your own novocaine.