The parent company of Johnny Rockets, Fatburger and Round Table Pizza filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.<\/p>\n
Beverly Hills-based Fat Brands Inc. said in a statement that it filed for bankruptcy on Monday to restructure the debt it accumulated while expanding its company portfolio, citing \u201cdifficult and largely unforeseen\u201d market conditions.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s portfolio includes several brands with roots in the Southland. It owns retro diner chain Johnny Rockets, founded in 1986 on Los Angeles\u2019 Melrose Avenue; shopping mall staple Hot Dog on a Stick, founded in 1964 in Santa Monica; and hamburger chain Fatburger, founded in 1947 in Los Angeles\u2019 Exposition Park neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Fat Brands also has investments in two brands that got their start in the Bay Area: pizza chain Round Table Pizza, founded in 1959 in Menlo Park, and fast-casual chain Yalla Mediterranean, founded in 2014 in Pleasant Hill.<\/p>\n
The company has accumulated more than $1 billion in debt, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission filing<\/a>. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cOur dynamic portfolio of brands has demonstrated tremendous resilience in a challenging restaurant operating environment over the last few years,\u201d Fat Brands Chief Executive Andrew Wiederhorn said in a statement.<\/p>\n Chapter 11 protection will give the company an opportunity to \u201cstrengthen our capital structure to support our concepts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fat Brands has a portfolio of 18 restaurant concepts with more than 2,200 locations worldwide, according to the company\u2019s November SEC filing<\/a>. More than 90% of its locations are franchised. <\/p>\n Its shares tumbled 13% Thursday. They have fallen close to 90% over the last three months. It received a delisting notice from the Nasdaq market earlier this month. <\/p>\n Company spokesperson Erin Mandzik said in an email that the company\u2019s restaurants are expected to remain operating as usual throughout the reorganization process.<\/p>\n The Times reported in 2022 that Wiederhorn, Fat Brands\u2019 founder, was investigated for alleged tax fraud<\/a>. Charges were dismissed<\/a> in July, but a federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to explain its decision, as reported by the Los Angeles Business Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The parent company of Johnny Rockets, Fatburger and Round Table Pizza filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Beverly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[14026,76363,54702,76357,76358,76361,76360,48,52,51,5936,47,50,49,63,3906,76362,76364,76359,23057,3025],"class_list":["post-155862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bankruptcy","tag-challenging-restaurant","tag-chapter","tag-company-portfolio","tag-fat-brands-inc","tag-fatburger","tag-johnny-rockets","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-location","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-month","tag-round-table-file","tag-round-table-pizza","tag-several-brand","tag-southern-district","tag-statement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}