TGI Fridays will start delivering booze — and it could help defeat a curse sweeping the restaurant industry

On Thursday, Fridays announced it had partnered with the delivery startup Lash to begin delivering alcoholic beverages with food orders placed via the chain's mobile app. The Texas-based company plans to test the service in Houston and Dallas in the coming months before rolling it out across the US next year.

"We're a bar-centric business," Caroline Masullo, Fridays' vice president of digital strategy, told Business Insider. "Right now, no one — from within their own technology — is delivering both food and alcohol."

To-go and delivery sales are a rare bright spot in the casual-dining industry right now, with Fridays growing take-out sales by 30% since launching online ordering last summer.

Booze is also crucial to TGI Fridays' strategy. The chain has recently emphasized its history as a bar as millennial interest in sit-down casual-dining chains has withered.

But delivering alcohol is a legally tricky proposition. TGI Fridays and Lash will tweak the service on a state-by-state basis (what Masullo calls a "block by block" strategy) to follow local ordinances.

While food and alcohol will be delivered together when ordered on TGI Fridays' app, the delivery person is actually making two stops, first at a liquor store and then at Fridays.

For cocktails, the company says, customers will be able to order an "everything but the booze" kit, which is sold by Fridays, alongside a suggested bottle of liquor from a local liquor store. Customers can then mix the drink themselves at home. Fridays is also considering making bartenders available for hire via the app.

Here's a video showing how the process is supposed to work:

TGI Fridays Showcase: Alcohol Delivery Flow

While TGI Fridays' booze-delivery plan is a bit complicated behind the scenes, the chain hopes it can help drive incremental sales and stand out from what the company calls a "sea of sameness" among sit-down restaurants.

Casual-dining chains including Applebee's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Ruby Tuesdays are facing slumping sales and store closings. Factors including millennials' indifference to casual-dining classics and the rise of fast-casual chains have played a role in their downfall.

As a result, many chains have doubled down on aspects of their business that they hope will differentiate them from the competition. Applebee's wants to win back baby boomers, while Chili's has revamped its menu to refocus on burgers and ribs.

Now, TGI Fridays is betting on delivery and booze — together and apart — to win over customers.