Yardbird Seeks Chapter 11 Sale With About $49 Million in Claims
The restaurant group plans to keep operating while it seeks a buyer, after expansion costs and uneven performance strained its finances.
Yardbird Southern Table & Bar and 10 affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 21, listing about $24.8 million in funded debt and $24.2 million in unsecured claims. The group plans to keep operating while it seeks a buyer.
The three company-run restaurants in Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Chicago remain open, as do licensed locations in Las Vegas and Singapore, the company said. Yardbird employs about 508 people across its owned and licensed locations.
Court filings describe a business burdened by expansion costs, operating difficulties at specific restaurants and disruptions that followed the pandemic. Yardbird closed locations in Denver in 2025 and in Los Angeles and Miami in 2026.
Founded in Miami Beach in 2011, Yardbird expanded after a private equity investment in 2017. The company said new restaurants required substantial spending on leases, construction and design, while performance varied across its locations.
The group’s biggest listed lenders include Brightwood Loan Services and related lenders, owed about $13.3 million, and City National Bank of Florida, owed nearly $8.4 million. Yardbird also listed about $3.1 million owed under an agreement with restaurant finance and rewards company inKind.
Yardbird has an asset-purchase agreement with an affiliate of its secured lenders, which will serve as the initial bidder in a court-supervised sale. The company said it contacted more than 170 potential buyers before filing; three submitted preliminary offers, each below the value of the first-lien debt.
The company is seeking $5.4 million in bankruptcy financing to cover payroll, supplies and ongoing operations. Its proposed sale schedule sets October 27 for bids, November 2 for an auction and November 9 for a sale hearing, subject to court approval.
The proposed financing includes $1.8 million in new revolving credit, with the rest tied to existing lender debt. The outcome will determine whether another buyer offers more than the lenders’ affiliate and which locations or business assets a buyer takes on.
This article was produced with the help of AI technology.
Source: Yahoo Finance
