A Memphis-based restaurant group filed for chapter 11 protection last Friday, according to federal bankruptcy court records, LocalMemphis.com reported. Holiday Ham Holdings, LLC, the parent company of Memphis-based restaurants Pimento's and Holiday Deli & Ham Co., filed for bankruptcy with the West Tennessee Bankruptcy Court Friday, July 7, with more than $3.2 million in debt, according to court records. While the group, which owns four different restaurants around Memphis between the two brands, has not said whether the move will affect restaurants or jobs, they will not be required to sell their assets to debt collectors, according to the terms of chapter 11 bankruptcy. Holiday Deli & Ham Co. began operations in Tennessee in July, 2015, and opened their first restaurant shortly thereafter.
Monster Beverage Corp. won bankruptcy court approval to acquire former rival Bang Energy out of chapter 11 for $362 million and settle litigation between the energy drink companies, Bloomberg News reported. Judge Peter Russin said on Wednesday that he’d approve the settlement and sale — averting the shutdown of Bang Energy, which has faced an uncertain future after its board fired founder and former Chief Executive Officer Jack Owoc earlier this year. The tie-up remains subject to additional customary closing conditions, lawyers said. Judge Russin also said he’d approve a resolution to false advertising litigation against the maker of Bang Energy. Bang maker Vital Pharmaceuticals Inc. filed bankruptcy last October, months after a California jury awarded Monster $293 million over Bang’s “super creatine” branding on its products. The deal nearly fell apart before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission granted early termination of its antitrust review of the merger between Monster and Bang. Bang lawyers said at earlier hearings that the company could shut down because it was running out of cash and argued its merger with Monster qualified for early termination under the so-called failing firm defense. Monster Executive Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Paul Dechary said in a sworn statement that the company has substantial resources to satisfy financial obligations under the Bang deal. Monster has a market capitalization of about $59 billion and cash and cash equivalents of about $3 billion, Dechary said.
Teen clothing chain rue21 Inc. is working with AlixPartners LLP for operational help as the company racks up earnings losses, Bloomberg News reported. Year-to-date, the retailer has posted negative Ebitda. The chain recently underwent a change in its C-suite, with Josh Burris taking over as chief executive officer in March. Burris had previously served as the head of GNC Holdings Inc., following the vitamin chain’s restructuring in 2020. In October, rue21 entered into negotiations with its lenders to avert a second bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg reported. It went through a bankruptcy in 2017, after its sales were hurt by falling foot traffic and changing consumer habits. It operates more than 600 stores.
After 127 years in San Francisco, Anchor Brewing Co. has brewed its last batch of beer. The historic San Francisco brewery had already announced last month that it would end production of its signature "Anchor Christmas Ale" and planned to stop selling its beer nationally. Now, all brewing has stopped, the San Francisco Business Times reported. It intends to package and distribute the beer that it has on hand through the end of the month, after which it will cease operations and liquidate the business as part of an assignment for the benefit of creditors (ABC) — a voluntary alternative to formal bankruptcy proceedings. The decision follows an early Wednesday morning vote by the board of directors of Sapporo Holdings Ltd., the Japanese brewing giant which purchased Anchor Brewing in 2017. In a statement, Anchor Brewing cited a "combination of challenging economic factors and declining sales since 2016."
Stacks, a three-decade old Burlingame, Calif., breakfast spot with three other locations around the Bay Area, recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. But owner and co-founder Geoffrey Swenson said the business will continue to operate as usual, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Per the June 30 filing in the Northern District of California U.S. bankruptcy Court, the restaurant reported liabilities of more than $1.6 million, a majority of the claims disputed from lawsuits and a partially secured lien. Burlingame was the first location for Stacks, which entered 2020 with five locations around the Bay Area but closed its San Francisco spot in Hayes Valley shortly after shutdown orders were issued for the pandemic. Swenson said yesterday that the bankruptcy filing was a result of losing two restaurants to the pandemic — the San Francisco and the Menlo Park Stacks, the latter sold to a franchisor in 2021 — and that the chapter 11 reorganization is a means to “meet our obligations.” “The business won’t be impacted,” Swenson said. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been.” Swenson and friend Tom Duffy opened the original Burlingame Stacks at 361 California Dr. in 1992, offering comfort breakfast food in ample proportions with pancakes as the star of the show. The restaurant grew over the years to five locations by 2020: San Francisco, Menlo Park, Campbell, Redwood City and Burlingame. The Redwood City and Campbell restaurants had been franchised to Jessica “Yari” Nuñez prior to the pandemic, and Nuñez acquired the longtime Menlo Park spot (open since 2002) in 2021. After the longtime San Francisco outpost in Hayes Valley (501 Hayes St.) shuttered after 13 years in mid-2020, it was taken over by the Hat Trick Hospitality Team — behind The Brixton and Rambler — to become New American restaurant and cocktail bar Hazie's.
The owner of the tropical island-themed Margaritaville Resort Times Square in New York has filed for bankruptcy to stop an imminent foreclosure sale, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The legal entity that owns the Times Square hotel, inspired by the namesake Jimmy Buffett song, blamed its financial difficulties partly on fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic since the hotel opened in 2021, according to its bankruptcy filing Sunday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Manhattan. It owes $309 million to its lenders. The hotel, which has 75 employees, will likely file for bankruptcy itself, according to a court filing. A lender has said that the property is significantly underwater and that the owner doesn’t dispute that it has defaulted on its debt. In late June, the owner sued the lender in a state court, hoping to postpone a Monday foreclosure sale and give it time to hang on and search for debt refinancing. But the business “was unable to obtain a temporary restraining order to stay the auction sale in the state court, triggering the urgency for the bankruptcy filing,” President Sethian Pomerantz said in a sworn declaration filed with the court. The chapter 11 filing put the foreclosure sale on hold, a lawyer for the hotel owner told the Wall Street Journal. The company’s goal is to negotiate with its creditors and refinance its debt.
Off-price retailer Tuesday Morning is officially opting to liquidate rather than reorganize, according to Retail Dive. On July 27, Judge Edward Morris in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth will consider Tuesday Morning’s motion to convert its chapter 11 filing to chapter 7. The company had already taken steps toward going out of business, following the court’s approval of its sale to Hilco Merchant Resources in May. Tuesday Morning, founded nearly 50 years ago, exited a previous chapter 11 process in early 2021. Tuesday Morning continues to operate online, and in a message to customers floats the idea of returning to brick-and-mortar retail. “We understand that many of you are eagerly awaiting the opening of a physical store,” the company said. “We aren’t ruling that out. Perhaps we should go back to our roots and open the first location in Dallas, where Tuesday Morning first began its journey.” That seems unlikely. Earlier this year the company ran nearly 500 stores and was looking to close at least half of them. According to a court June 30 filing regarding its request to shift to chapter 7, going-out-of-business sales at all stores would be wrapped up by the end of June, “which will conclude the Debtors’ retail operations.” In the filing, the company also notes that the debtors have “sold substantially all of their assets.”
Bed Bath & Beyond canceled an auction for its Buybuy Baby retail chain, abandoning a last-ditch effort to find a buyer to salvage the infant-focused retailer, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The retailer has been reviewing bids from interested buyers for all or parts of the company for weeks, with the sale process now down to the final stage. An auction was scheduled for Friday. Last week, Bed Bath & Beyond picked baby-product maker Dream On Me Industries as the winning bidder for the Buybuy Baby brand. The company was looking for higher and better offers, according to court papers filed Thursday. The company said it didn’t receive any higher or better offers for Buybuy Baby, and will instead seek bankruptcy court approval to sell the Buybuy Baby intellectual property to Dream On Me Industries at a hearing next week, according to the court filing Thursday. Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy in April after years of losses and failed turnaround plans left the once-powerful retailer short of cash. Bed Bath & Beyond brand, including its website and domain names, and its customer data were sold to Overstock.com last month. https://www.wsj.com/articles/bed-bath-beyond-abandons-efforts-to-find-b…
Discount retailer Christmas Tree Shops Inc. has begun shutting down its business after dwindling sales prompted lenders to withdraw funding for its chapter 11 case, Bloomberg News reported. Christmas Tree Shops is negotiating a budget with lenders to continue funding payroll and other operating expenses as it conducts going-out-of-business sales, the company’s lawyer Harold Murphy said during a court hearing Friday. A lawyer representing the retailer’s unsecured creditors said they’re preparing for a liquidation. The store closings come little more than two months after Christmas Tree Shops filed bankruptcy with hopes of finding an investor that could fund a restructuring or going-concern sale. Christmas Tree Shops had an offer to sell the business but that the deal wasn’t supported by lenders, Murphy said. Murphy said the first few weeks of the company’s bankruptcy were promising but that the trajectory of the chapter 11 changed because its sales “dropped precipitously” in June and it defaulted on a $45 million bankruptcy loan. The retailer filed a notice in late June that lenders had terminated its chapter 11 financing.
