Happy Bar and Grill will replace American fast food stalwart TGI Fridays on Coventry Street in London’s West End. The Bulgarian restaurant chain, with 22 sites across the country and 2 in Barcelona, Spain, will bring its all-day menu to London later in 2019, according to MCA Insight.
Happy was founded in Varna on Christmas Eve 1994, and now serves a menu of pizza, pasta, burgers, salads, and other casual-dining stalwarts, mixed in with traditional Bulgarian dishes. That means chicken tenders and burgers — also anchors of the restaurant Happy will replace — sit alongside tutamnik cheese bread and kyufteta, traditional meat balls. There is also a black burger with a charcoal bun, because it is 2019 and some restaurant trends are irrepressibly transnational.
The large Piccadilly Circus site is a big bet for the company in its first London opening, but the guaranteed tourist footfall — and London and its investors’ mutual appetite for large-scale international imports — should see it right.