The vegan restaurant concept formerly known as By Chloe is now Beatnic.
The name change is a condition of the beleaguered chain's bankruptcy settlement, which was finalized in March, and gave the fast casual six months to debut a new name on all “restaurants, supplies, digital media and all other assets,” according to court documents.
The chain said the new name fits with its Greenwich Village roots and that has no plans to change its menu.
“2021 is about letting the past go—and when your name no longer fits, you toss it too,” the newly named Beatnic says on its website. “To find our truth, we went back to our roots: NYC’s Greenwich Village, and the free, fun, you-be-you all-welcoming culture that thrives there.”
Beatnic’s website lists six open locations in New York, along with two temporarily closed restaurants, along with one store in Boston and one in Providence, R.I.
By Chloe was once a rising star among emerging chains. It had 14 locations in 2019 and systemwide sales of $37 million, according to an estimate from Restaurant Business sister firm Technomic.
In 2018, the chain secured a $31 million investment from several capital funds and made ambitious plans to grow to about 20 units. The lead investors, Bain Capital and Kitchen Fund, were among the stalking horse bidders that brought By Chloe’s parent company, BC Hospitality Group, out of bankruptcy. They acquired the chain for $333,000 and assumption of debt, previously listed at up to $150,000 in liabilities.
Those winning bidders previously provided $3.25 million in bankruptcy financing for By Chloe.
The name change was required by a judge’s ruling in a trademark hearing that found BC Hospitality Group did not have the rights to sell the By Chloe name without agreement from the chain’s co-founder, celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli, who has long been embroiled in a fight with the company.
Coscarelli, a former Food Network cupcake competition winner, filed suit against By Chloe’s owners in 2018, alleging trademark infringement. Coscarelli had been ousted from her company the year before after an arbitrator declared she had been “grossly negligent” in handling the brand’s business dealings.
In May, Coscarelli filed a trademark infringement suit against the investors, asking a jury to weigh in on the use of By Chloe’s name prior to the bankruptcy proceedings. That case is slated for a pre-trial conference Tuesday.
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