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TGI Fridays

The Chain Restaurant Tom Cruise Trained At For An Iconic Film Role By Alexa Valme Sept. 22, 2025 4:09 pm EST

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By the mid-1960s, TGI Friday's had already built a reputation for being more than a neighborhood bar — it was a scene. Crowds packed in so tightly that police sometimes had to shut down entire streets just to control the flow of people moving between watering holes. The chaos gave founder Alan Stillman plenty to brag about years later, once he saw his own story reflected on screen. As he put it in an interview with Edible Geography , "Have you seen the movie 'Cocktail?' Tom Cruise played me!"

By the 1980s, Friday's had turned bartending into performance art. At the Marina del Rey location in California,

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