By peopleimages.com @Adobe Stock

Heather Haddon of The Wall Street Journal reports that empty tables and rising costs are pushing a record number of restaurants into bankruptcy. Haddon writes:

Americans love fish tacos, but not enough to keep Rubio’s Coastal Grill from joining one of 2024’s biggest food trends: the bankrupt restaurant chain.

The California chain founded around 41 years ago by a surfer hung on through the Covid-19 pandemic, and sales had been improving. But business never came all the way back, and as expenses climbed and customers grew fed up with the rising cost of eating out, Rubio’s filed for bankruptcy protection in June.

“You have locations that just aren’t viable. You have the Covid hangover, labor costs. There’s multiple problems,” said Jeff Crivello, president of Trew Capital Management, an investment firm that bought Rubio’s out of bankruptcy in August.

Restaurant chains and operators this year are on track to declare the most bankruptcies in decades outside of 2020, when the global pandemic upended the industry’s operations, according to an analysis of BankruptcyData.com records. […]

Same-store sales traffic at U.S. restaurants was down by 3.3% this year through Oct. 6 versus the same period in 2023, according to market-research firm Black Box Intelligence. Visits to casual-dining restaurants fell 4.5%. […]

Crivello, the former chief executive officer of barbecue chain Famous Dave’s, earlier this year bought the debt for BurgerFi and Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza & Wings, both restaurant chains that have since declared bankruptcy. A bankruptcy court is expected to hold an auction for parent company BurgerFi International later this month, and Crivello could end up owning dozens of additional restaurants if competing bidders fall short.

Crivello said he is often asked about his willingness to take on distressed brands. He said he is counting on his knowledge of the restaurant business to revive them: “It’s the devil you know.”

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