Ed’s Beans Inc., the parent company of Cranberry-based Crazy Mocha and Kiva Han Coffee, filed for chapter 11 protection this week, claiming it owes more than $4.75 million to more than 50 creditors, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Total assets owned by the company fall in the $100,000 to $500,00 range, according to the court filing. The petition, filed Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, indicates that the company’s biggest creditor, First Commonwealth Bank, is owed $2.4 million. The founder of Crazy Mocha, Ken Zeff, who sold the company two years ago to Ed’s Beans, is owed $685,000. Zeff started the company in 2000 and sold the chain in March 2018 to Ed Wethli, owner of Ed’s Beans. For years, the Pittsburgh-born coffee chain held its own against a national brand like Starbucks and several other independent coffee shops in the competitive Downtown market and beyond the city limits into the suburbs. COVID-19 turned the tables on Crazy Mocha and wreaked havoc on coffee shops across the country due to social distancing limitations and rules that were put in place to protect staff and customers from infection.
