Bakery-restaurant with Conn. shops files for bankruptcy
Le Pain Quotidien filed Tuesday for bankruptcy protection from creditors, with the possibility of a permanent closure of its Stamford location and a majority of others depending on the outcome of lease negotiations.
Le Pain Quotidien has its headquarters in New York City under the control of a
Belgian entity, which has made a claim for $69 million against the chain. The bakery-restaurant company had closed all of its nearly 100 U.S. locations and furloughed staff at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, including in Stamford, Greenwich and New Canaan.
Restaurant bankruptcies this year have included the parent company of Brio Tus
can Grille, which closed its Danbury Fair location permanently last month.
In layoff notifications filed with the state of New York, Le Pain Quotidien lists restaurants in Westchester County, Long Island and other suburban areas as employing about 25 people. The Connecticut Department of Labor listed no equivalent notices as of Thursday for its trio of shuttered Connecticut locations.
The list of “dark store” leases that Le Pain Quotidien wants to reject immediately with the permission of a bankruptcy judge include its Harbor Point location in Stamford, facing
Fairway Market, which also is warning of the possibility of a closure if it cannot find a buyer as part of its company’s own Chapter 11 restructuring.
New York City-based Aurify Brands is now negotiating a bankruptcy purchase of Le Pain Quotidien’s assets with the goal of reopening 35 restaurants that employed 1,000 people. That could leave as many as another 1,500 jobs by the wayside, depending on the outcomes of rent negotiations for storefronts that have struggled under expensive leases, with Greenwich and New Canaan not included in the initial list of lease rejections sought by Le Pain Quotidien.
Aurify, which operates multiple fast-casual chains including The Little Beet Table with a Greenwich Avenue location,
beat out three bidders that had emerged from an initial field of more than 40 that had explored a deal.
Le Pain Quotidien’s creditors include Lecoq Cuisine, a commercial bakery in Bridgeport owed nearly $120,000 and which laid off 180 employees in March. The Chef ’s Warehouse, a Ridgefield-based gourmet food distributor with a large distribution center in New York City, is owed a slightly larger amount.
Founded in 1990 in Belgium by Alain Coumont on an artisan bread recipe and a communal table built from the floorboards of train cars, Le Pain Quotidien’s menu today includes egg breakfasts with smoked salmon, porridge, Dutch pancakes and fruit smoothie bowls.
Le Pain Quotidien opened its first U.S. location in 1997 in New York City, choosing New Canaan as its first landing spot in Connecticut in 2009. At its peak, the chain had 290 restaurants globally.
As of 2018, the chain remained among the 200 largest restaurants in the United States as estimated by Technomic, with $175 million in revenue that year.
Sales declined 13 percent last year, with the company facing increased competition in its New York City market by “graband-go” rivals that were able to continue operating during the pandemic.