The Covid pandemic forced many restaurants to adjust to a new normal based on health safety protocols meant to prevent the spread of the potentially deadly disease.
In March 2020, restaurants across the nation closed their doors but soon reopened with social distancing and safety protocols.
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Fast-food restaurants were designed with take-out and drive-thru systems that allowed them to continue operating as if nothing happened, though many shut their dining rooms for many months for safety reasons.
Related: Major nationwide trucking company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Casual restaurants did their best to offer take-out and curbside pick-up systems, but some restaurant concepts, such as buffets, were not designed for such systems, did not adopt them, and many went out of business.
Some of the most significant restaurants to suffer the effects of the pandemic filed for bankruptcy over the last year.
Seafood chain Red Lobster, which filed for bankruptcy in May 2024, closed about 187 restaurants. The dining chain emerged from Chapter 11 in September 2024 and now operates about 478 locations in 44 states.
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Bar and grill chain TGI Fridays had 161 U.S. locations when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 2, 2024, to reorganize and closed 76 locations. The restaurant chain listed 85 U.S. locations on its website in April.
Italian restaurant chain Buca di Beppo closed 18 locations last year before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Aug. 4, 2024, to reorganize its business with the support of its lenders.
The restaurant chain on Nov. 4 won approval to sell its 44 remaining corporate-owned restaurants to its lender Main Street Capital Corp., with a credit bid of $27 million.
Covid hit buffet restaurants hard
But it was buffet restaurants that were hit the hardest by the pandemic, with several filing for bankruptcy months after the beginning of the pandemic.
National buffet chain Hometown Buffet’s parent Fresh Acquisitions LLC filed for Chapter 11 in April 2021, suffering from the effects of the Covid pandemic and closed down permanently.Â
The chain had struggled for years as the previous owner, Buffets Inc., filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and 2012 before selling the company in 2015, just before the chain’s new owners filed Chapter 11 again in 2016.
Other buffet restaurants also felt the harsh effects of the Covid pandemic and were forced to file for bankruptcy.
Golden Corral franchisees were among the buffet restaurant owners to file for bankruptcy as the pandemic subsided.
The buffet restaurant chain’s largest franchisee at the time, 1069 Restaurant Group LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2020, and its second-largest franchisee, Platinum Corral LLC, filed for bankruptcy in April 2021.
A Golden Corral franchisee filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas. (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Golden Corral franchisee files for bankruptcy protection
And now fast-forward to 2025, and another franchisee of Golden Corral has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to reorganize its business.
South Texas Corral LLC filed its Subchapter V petition on June 17 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, listing $150,000 in assets and $1.64 million in liabilities.
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The Brownsville, Texas, Golden Corral franchisee did not reveal a reason for filing for bankruptcy in its petition.
Golden Corral, which launched in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1973, operates about 351 restaurants in 39 states and Puerto Rico, with most of them run by franchisees.
The restaurant chain claims to be the nation’s largest grill buffet restaurant chain. It serves all-you-can-eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, featuring various grilled steaks, ribs, barbecue beef, brisket pot roast, meatloaf, burgers, sandwiches, chicken and wings, soups and salads, and various breakfast items.
Related: Popular local Dairy Queen rival files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
