The Popular American Restaurant Chain That Fought To Make Bartending An Olympic Sport

Winning an Olympic gold medal is one of the highest honors an athlete can receive, and it's common for sports that aren't included in the biannual competition to try to gain representation in the games. Skateboarding and surfing are relatively new categories now officially recognized by the Olympic Committee, and breaking (commonly known as breakdancing) made its Olympic debut in 2024. Depending on who you ask, those belong, but about 25 years ago, casual restaurant chain TGI Fridays turned some heads by proposing that bartending should be distinguished as a legitimate Olympic sport.

With a plane propeller in every restaurant, TGI Fridays was then well-known for its flair — be that in the form of dazzling doodads affixed to employee uniforms or smiling mixologists spinning and flipping liquor bottles around to captivate guests. Like a scene out of the 1988 classic "Cocktail" (a movie where a TGI Fridays employee trained Tom Cruise on bartending), bartenders fling spirits about in hypnotizing fashion as they craft perfectly mixed cocktails for thirsty patrons. Going out for happy hour was more than just having a pick-me-up after a long day — it was an event fraught with charismatic entertainment.

The move to get bartending the recognition TGI Fridays thought it deserved followed years of the restaurant overseeing the World Bartending Championship, where skilled bartenders squared off against one another to determine who was the crème de la crème. The restaurant took bartending seriously, having notoriously high standards for hiring bartenders as far back as the 1970s. Unfortunately, all that dedication to the art of bartending may have caused the chain to lose sight of the highest priority for a restaurant — making dough.

It's no secret to anyone who has watched the Olympic Games in recent years that TGI Fridays' efforts were all for naught. It's unsurprising, but it's kind of a shame as well. Hours upon hours of practice are required to attain a high level of skill at bartending, and the argument could be made that they are athletes in their own right. While I'm not sure exactly how the competition would be structured, I know I'd be watching if it were being held.

Unfortunately, TGI Fridays has had its fair share of struggles since petitioning the Olympic Committee to have a bartending contest alongside bobsledding or the pole vault (would it be part of the winter or summer games?). The restaurant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024, and the World Bartending Competition sadly seems to be primarily a thing of the past. There was a WBC held in Guam as recently as 2025, but it doesn't seem as though TGI Fridays is heavily focused on promoting the event as of late.

There's still a chance that TGI Fridays can turn things around as a business, but the corporate actors at the helm likely aren't interested in making mixology an Olympic sport these days. Still, bartending aficionados should hold onto hope for the future. After all, if breakdancing can become an Olympic sport, why not bartending?