True Food Kitchen, an Arizona-based health food restaurant chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the weekend. So far, the chain has closed a dozen locations nationwide. Its other 34 sites, including two in the Houston area, remain safe—for now.
On Sunday, True Food Kitchen filed nine separate Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions. Nathan Cook, the chief restructuring officer for the company, signed off Monday on the bankruptcy declaration. According to court documents, Cook said the restaurant chain was filing because it didn’t have enough cash to protect its assets.
The company has about $42.1 million in funded debt (excluding lease obligations, vendor bills and other possible debts).
“Chapter 11 provides the breathing room necessary to secure and preserve those assets, maintain only essential personnel and services, and administer and monetize the estates during the Chapter 11 cases,” Cook wrote.
True Food Kitchen got its start in 2008 in Phoenix. It was the brainchild of then-Fox Restaurant Concepts (FRC) owner Sam Fox and Dr. Andrew Weil, a James Beard Foundation Award-nominated author and advocate for integrative medicine. The menu is largely Mediterranean, which fits with Weil’s anti-inflammatory recommendations.
True Food Kitchen grew to around 20 locations by 2017 and was later spun off FRC into its own company. (Two years later, Fox would sell his restaurant group to the Cheesecake Factory for $350 million.)
According to court documents, True Food Kitchen eventually had 46 locations across the U.S. before the bankruptcy. During the years leading up to that peak, Cook wrote the chain experienced some significant difficulties:
The COVID-19 pandemic struck True Food Kitchens hard, as well. Cook wrote the company, to offset declining dine-in traffic, converted some restaurants into ghost kitchens to pivot toward delivery. The result, however, negatively impacted staffing and the restaurant experience.
When True Foods filed for bankruptcy, it then closed a dozen locations. According to court documents, the locations held no strategic value to their reorganization plan and did not add significant enough value to the bankruptcy estate. The locations include:
True Foods Kitchen has two Houston-area locations: one at BLVD Place near the Galleria (1700 Post Oak Blvd.) and another in The Woodlands (9595 Six Pines Dr.). Both locations appear safe for now, but according to court documents, more closures for the chain may be on the way.
Currently, True Foods Kitchen is hoping the court will help the company preserve its current operations and secure financing to help pay off its debt. There is also an indication, according to court documents, that the company may look for a buyer.