T.G.I. Friday's Restaurants to Offer Wireless Access To Menu

Guests Can Locate a Friday's Restaurant and View Menu With Web-Enabled Mobile Phones or PDAs
March 26 -- T.G.I. Friday's today becomes the first global restaurant chain to launch a restaurant locator and its menu via Internet-enabled mobile phones and wireless hand-held devices. Weary travelers and frequent guests can easily locate a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant for some serious fun and of course, its famous food and drinks.

Once the application is launched from a Web-enabled PDA (personal digital assistant), T.G.I. Friday's domestic restaurant locator automatically finds the Friday's restaurant closest to the user's location, without having to punch in a zip code or an area code. For example, if a business traveler from Boston is visiting Orlando and suddenly craves Jack Daniel's Wings, he can click the "Auto Locator" to display the number of miles, street address and a phone and fax number for the nearest Friday's restaurant.

"Many of our guests like to visit our restaurants while traveling," said Stacy Baw, Internet marketing manager for Carlson Restaurants Worldwide. "Since many U.S. cities have multiple T.G.I. Friday's locations, the restaurant locator enables wireless device users to highlight the closest one, even if they're unfamiliar with local surroundings."

The address, phone and fax number for all T.G.I. Friday's restaurants in 53 countries can be accessed from the Friday's wireless site. In addition, folks in nearly 100 countries including Australia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, France and the United Kingdom will be able to access the Friday's wireless site -- you can even access it from Burundi, Congo, Togo, Tunisia and Zimbabwe!

The T.G.I. Friday's wireless site provides the full menu with a description of each item, allowing new guests the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the food that has made the chain famous, before even stepping into a restaurant. The Hot Stuff section reflects the personality of the award-winning T.G.I. Friday's Web site, and allows wireless users to check out current promotions and other fun items such as recipes.

T.G.I. Friday's wireless application is available on wireless-enabled PDAs such as the Palm VIIx, and can be downloaded from the Friday's Web site at www.fridays.com. Users simply enter www.fridays.com to access the wireless application on PDAs with a wireless modem or Web-enabled phones, including models by Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Qualcomm, and other commonly used brands. "We want to give our guests access to information about Friday's wherever they are -- at work, home or traveling abroad. Wireless access via web- enabled mobile phones and PDAs creates a quick and easy way to obtain it," said Baw.

Satama, an interactive consultancy, designed T.G.I. Friday's wireless site. Headquartered in Finland, Satama's Dallas, Texas office helped capture T.G.I. Friday's larger-than-life personality and scaled it down just enough to fit into customers' wireless devices.

SOURCE TGI Friday's Inc.
www.prnewswire.com