TGI Fridays serves up virtual reality dining

The ‘fully-immersive’ 360 degree headset will allow diners to take the reins of a Lapland dog sled pulled by ten huskies while tucking in to the chain’s new Christmas menu.

Friday’s said it wanted to ‘pull out all the stops for Christmas’ following the launch of its controversial ‘mistletoe drone’ last year.

The 90 second film was created by filming in temperatures of -17C 85 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Province of Lapland.

It has been piloted at TGI Fridays Westfield Stratford restaurant in London and will visit selected restaurants nationwide throughout December.

Rachel McDowell, marketing manager at TGI Fridays UK, said: “We thought long and hard about how to top [the drone] this year and we couldn’t think of a better way of doing that than making people’s Christmas dreams come true virtually at Fridays.

“It will undoubtedly be the talking point of any Christmas party at Fridays – we hope guests have as much fun experiencing it as we did creating it!”

The restaurant group said it created the film after research showed dog sledding would be most adult’s Christmas activity of choice, while Lapland was the most popular Christmas holiday location.