The Bar Louie pub chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, days after closing a number of locations in the Midwest and New Jersey.
It is the chain’s second bankruptcy petition in five years. It previously filed for Chapter 11 in January 2020 after closing nearly 40 locations.
The latest filing, in U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware, indicates that Bar Louie is deep in debt, with liabilities of $50 million to $100 million, compared to assets of $1 million to $10 million.
It owes more than $1.8 million to the big distributor US Foods and more than $590,000 to supplier Edward Don, according to the filing, which came from parent company BLH TopCo, based in Dallas.
The filing also asks for permission to reject the leases of 14 restaurants that are underperforming and unprofitable. The locations are in Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Michigan, Colorado and New Jersey. All were closed in the months and days leading up to the filing.
Bar Louie is also petitioning to cancel the employment contracts of COO Michael Mrlik and SVP of Technology Roberta Frierson, saying that the company no longer has a need for those agreements. The two officials have either left the company or entered into a new contract prior to the filing, the document said.
Like most full-service chains, Bar Louie’s sales were slammed by the pandemic, and it never fully recovered. In 2023, sales were down 2.3% and it had 66 locations, less than half of the 134 it had at its peak in 2019, according to Technomic data.
Founded in 1990 in Dallas, Bar Louie is known for its beer and cocktails and pub food.
It is the latest casual-dining chain to succumb to bankruptcy following Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, Bucca di Beppo and On the Border, which all blamed a combination of pandemic effects and inflation for declining sales and traffic.
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