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U.S. restaurant employment reached pre-pandemic levels in September for the first time in three-and-a-half years, according to a report released Friday, signaling a potentially broader recovery for the leisure and hospitality industry, Reuters reported. The number of Americans employed in food service increased by 61,000 in September from the prior month, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released as part of the monthly U.S employment report showed. Food service and hospitality workers accounted for the majority of jobs added in the wider leisure and hospitality sector, which added 96,000 jobs last month. The gains in restaurant and bar employment last month were almost double the average of 37,000 jobs added monthly over the past year. Overall, American employers added 336,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate remained unchanged in September at 3.8%, the BLS reported.

The New York Stock Exchange has informed Philadelphia-based Rite Aid Corp., which for weeks has been the subject of bankruptcy rumors, that the company is no longer in compliance with its listing standards, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. The retail pharmacy chain, according to the NYSE, no longer meets the exchange's minimum market capitalization standard of $200 million or its minimum stock price standard of $1 per share. As of late Thursday morning, stock in Rite Aid was trading at 51 cents per share and the company's market cap was at about $30 million. Rite Aid said that it will continue to be listed on the NYSE during "cure periods," typically six months, that will give it time to regain compliance. "As previously disclosed, the company has been engaged in reviewing and continues to review strategic alternatives to recapitalize, refinance or otherwise optimize its capital structure which may ultimately result in the Company pursuing one or more significant corporate transactions or other remedial measures," Rite Aid stated. "The ongoing review includes an evaluation of available options to regain compliance with the NYSE’s continued listing standards." Rite Aid, which operates more than 2,200 retail pharmacy locations across 17 states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, said that it can provide no assurances that it will be able to regain compliance. The company, which employs more than 6,300 pharmacists and more than 47,000 workers overall, has not specifically addressed speculation that a bankruptcy filing is imminent.

Bridal dressmaker JLM Couture Inc. has filed for bankruptcy in Delaware — hit hard by the disputes with a landlord and a former designer as well as by the pandemic, WWD reported. Already the company — which makes bridal-related dresses under the Allison Webb, Lazaro, and Hayley Paige brands, among others — had cut back its operations significantly, shifting down from a workforce of 70 in 2020 to 21 employees today. Leading the company was Joseph L. Murphy, who founded JLM in 1988 and became chief executive officer and controlling shareholder in the mid-’90s, according to a declaration that was part of the chapter 11 filings. Murphy said that the company was on the “verge of insolvency” when he took the reins, but that he was able to raise new equity and set up new lines of credit and expand the business. In 2012, JLM expanded the luxury portion of the business, adding the Hayley Paige line as well as a West Hollywood flagship. But the pandemic weighed heavily on the bridal business generally as well as on JLM and by 2021 the relationship with the brand’s designer — Hayley Paige Gutman — had broken down into a nasty legal dispute over Gutman’s use of the Hayley Paige name professionally and access to an Instagram account. While a court largely sided with JLM and Gutman ultimately changed her name to Cheval, the battle weighed on the company. “The debtor’s operations were primarily affected by the active and contentious litigation with one of its former designers,” Murphy said. “The breach of contract by this designer has substantially hurt the company’s sales, and the legacy costs associated with the designer’s operation could not be reduced quickly enough to offset this damage."

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up a case asking the Federal Reserve to lower the cap on debit card “swipe fees,” The Hill reported. An amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act directed the Fed to set a “reasonable” cap on fees that banks charge merchants each time a customer swipes a debit card. Those fees must also be “proportional” to banks’ costs. Implemented in 2011, the Fed capped fees for financial institutions with $10 billion or more in assets at 21 cents, with an additional 1 cent for fraud prevention and 0.05 percent for fraud recovery. The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal brought by the Corner Post, a North Dakota-based truck stop and convenience store, challenging the Fed’s cap on debit card swipe fees. The Corner Post joined the North Dakota Retail Association and the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association in the original 2021 case in the U.S. District Court in Bismarck. The plaintiffs argued the cap set was higher than the one Congress intended. The Fed originally proposed a 12 cent cap, but said it raised that cap after considering all industries impacted.

First, the good news for office landlords: A post-Labor Day bump nudged return-to-office rates in mid-September to their highest level since the onset of the pandemic. Now the bad: Office attendance in big cities is still barely half of what it was in 2019, and company get-tough measures are proving largely ineffective at boosting that rate much higher, according to a Wall Street Journal reported. Indeed, a number of forces — from the prospect of more COVID-19 cases in the fall to a weakening economy — could push the return rate into reverse, property owners and city officials say. More than before, chief executives at blue-chip companies are stepping up efforts to fill their workspace. Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase are among the companies that have recently vowed to get tougher on employees who don’t show up. In August, Meta told employees they could face disciplinary action if they regularly violate new workplace rules. But these actions haven’t yet moved the national return rate needle much, and a majority of companies remain content to allow employees to work at least part-time remotely despite the tough talk. Most employees go into offices during the middle of the week, but floors are sparsely populated on Mondays and Fridays. In Chicago, some September days had a return rate of over 66%. But it was below 30% on Fridays. In New York, it ranges from about 25% to 65%, according to Kastle Systems, which tracks security-card swipes. Overall, the average return rate in the 10 U.S. cities tracked by Kastle Systems matched the recent high of 50.4% of 2019 levels for the week ended Sept. 20, though it slid a little below half the following week.

Thrasio, a startup that raised $3.4 billion to buy up consumer brands sold on Amazon, is exploring restructuring options as it contends with a post-pandemic slump in online spending, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The e-commerce company has been working with consultants from AlixPartners and lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis to address its financial challenges, they said. Thrasio is focused on raising fresh capital and could examine other possibilities, including a bankruptcy filing, they said. After raising funds from investment firms including Advent International and Silver Lake, Thrasio went on an acquisition spree, gobbling up dozens of companies that sell their wares primarily through Amazon, from sellers of camping gear and kitchen tools to pet deodorizers. But this business model, known as “Amazon aggregation,” has come under pressure as shoppers have curtailed their online purchases since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, Thrasio laid off roughly 20% of its workforce, while company founder Carlos Cashman stepped down as chief executive and was succeeded by Greg Greeley, a former Amazon executive. The company’s recent trajectory has tracked other startups that raised money at lofty valuations during the pandemic but have since struggled to weather economic headwinds, changing consumer behaviors and a pullback in technology investing.

Municipal bonds tied to Destiny USA, the biggest shopping mall in New York state, were cut deeper into junk by Moody’s Investors Service on Wednesday because the complex is unlikely to meet a key measure of profitability needed to extend an outstanding loan, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s lowered the rating on municipal bonds backed by payments in lieu of taxes to Caa2 from Caa1 and revised the outlook to stable, the company said in a release. The downgrade reflects an increase in “default risk” because the net-operating-income target needed to extend an existing subordinate mortgage-backed security loan past June 2024 is “unlikely to be satisfied.” The municipal debt was originally issued to expand the Carousel Center mall in Syracuse, N.Y., into a super-regional shopping complex, now called Destiny. About $270 million of Pilot bonds are outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The mall met the first NOI target of $16 million to extend the CMBS loan to June 6, 2024, but the next target is 18.75% higher, “a high threshold that will be difficult to achieve,” Moody’s said. If the threshold isn’t satisfied and the obligor, Carousel Center Company LP, is unable to refinance the loan, then Carousel would enter receivership and the property may be put up for sale, Moody’s said.

Soft Surroundings, the Creve Coeur-based retailer, has notified 181 headquarters employees that some will definitely lose their jobs while others might still keep their employment under a new owner, the St. Louis Business Journal reported. The retailer, which sells women’s clothes, beauty products, gifts and home décor, earlier this month said it plans to sell its direct-to-consumer assets to online retailer Coldwater Creek as part of a restructuring under a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. If approved, the plan calls for shuttering the local retailer's brick-and-mortar stores. In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice received Monday by the state of Missouri, Soft Surroundings said that on Sept. 19 it notified all headquarters employees that if it's not successful in selling all or part of its business, it's likely the facility will close, "in which case all employees will be terminated." There also might be "additional layoffs" if the buyer doesn't take on all of the company's remaining workforce, officials told the state.

Instant Brands, the Illinois-based bankrupt maker of the Instant Pot pressure cooker and Pyrex glassware, has drawn interest for different parts of its business from parties including Centre Lane Partners and hedge fund Citadel, Bloomberg News reported. Citadel has offered to purchase loan holdings from existing lenders at around 7 cents on the dollar. It’s asking those who don’t want to sell to team up in a potential bid for certain assets, such as the housewares business. That would allow lenders to use debt they’re owed toward purchasing the company’s assets out of bankruptcy. Its subsidiary Citadel Advisors owns about $7.4 million in loans to Instant Brands on behalf of funds and accounts managed by it, according to a June court filing. It’s part of a group of lenders that own or manage roughly $258.1 million in terms loans to the kitchen goods maker. Meanwhile, private equity firm Centre Lane is considering a bid for the appliance unit, said some of the people. Deliberations are fluid and there is no certainty that the parties will proceed with a final bid.

Noble House Home Furnishings joined the ranks of furniture suppliers to file for bankruptcy earlier this month, with the company blaming cost inflation and past supply chain disruptions, among other challenges, Retail Dive reported. When the company filed for chapter 11, it owed suppliers and warehousers in its supply chain some $10 million from the period leading up to its bankruptcy, according to a court filing. Trade debts from importers and vendors in China and Vietnam make up a majority of the largest claims by the company’s unsecured creditors. Since filing, Noble House asked for and received court permission to make emergency payments to keep its suppliers in good stead and prevent warehousers from seizing inventory. Without the ability to pay claims to vendors as they arise, Noble House would face “significant disruption to [the company’s] operations at this critical time,” it said in the filing. Founded in 1992, the family-owned company drop-ships merchandise for some of the largest retailers in the U.S., including Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Wayfair, Overstock, Target and Home Depot, the company’s current CFO, Gayla Bella, said in court papers. Among its wholesale customers are off-price giants Ross Stores and TJX Cos.