While filing for bankruptcy is thought of as being the end of the road for a restaurant business, this worst case scenario is often avoidable.
Sweet Tomatoes, also known as Souplantation in California, was hit hard by the pandemic, just like many other buffet restaurants.
This beloved bargain steak chain closed its doors far before the pandemic, but now Steak and Ale is ready for a comeback.
This Texas-based pizza chain had already begun to decline before the pandemic with systemwide sales dropping from $443.3 million to $393.9 million—a decline of about 10%—from 2017 through 2019.
California Pizza Kitchen was hit hard by the pandemic: dine-in sales at the chain dropped a precipitous 77% in the last week of March 2020, and by the end of the year the chain had lost more than a tenth of its store count.
Buffet chains were particularly hard-hit by the pandemic, and Golden Corral was no exception.
The steakhouse chain's parent company, CraftWorks Holdings, declared bankruptcy in March of 2020, furloughing almost all of its 18 thousand employees.
Friendly's has declared bankruptcy twice in the past twelve years—once in 2011, and then again in 2020.