Five months after Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen & Market merged, the new company appears headed to bankruptcy and all its stores in Illinois, Texas, and the D.C. area are closing on Tuesday, April 23.
Corporate workers were informed Tuesday morning via a conference call with management that the stores would be closing by noon. Store workers were left in the dark and instructed not to talk to customers about the matter. Their emotions ranged from frustration to fear about losing their jobs. Dom’s locations in Lincoln Park and Old Town closed Tuesday morning, with one account claiming staff had to kick out Lincoln Park shoppers to close the store.
Outfox Hospitality — the combined venture of the two Chicago-based entities — is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to Substack newsletter Snaxshot. A meeting was called for Tuesday evening, as confirmed by Eater, to discuss the company’s future with workers. Outfox has yet to return an official request for comment, though employees are scrambling after Snaxshot’s Monday afternoon scoop. No filings have shown up in court records, as of Tuesday morning. About 1,000 staffers work at Outfox across several states, with about 100 full-time workers in Chicago. No notices were made on Illinois’ or Texas’ WARN report pages, which track notices of mass firings. In Illinois, that covers companies with 75 full-time workers; they’re legally mandated to submit layoff notices with a 60-day warning. WARN still applies if a company files for bankruptcy.
Source: Chicago.Eater