This article has been updated.
Score one for COVID-19 pandemic pizza powerhouses Domino’s Pizza and Papa John’s.
Pizza buffet joint CiCi’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday. CiCi’s has 11 company-operated locations and franchises the brand to 307 other sites. The franchise network is not included in the bankruptcy.
The company will give ownership of the business to its lenders.
CiCi’s joins a long list of restaurants that have been hammered into the ground by the pandemic.
Hurt by years of rising competition and now the pandemic, the iconic East Coast restaurant chain Friendly’s Restaurants LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Nov. 2. The company — known for its Fribble dessert and boxed ice cream — will sell all its assets to Amici Partners Group. All 130 company-operated and franchise locations are expected to stay open.
Ruby Tuesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October. The company is currently in the process of finding a buyer for its business. It operates some 500 company-owned and franchised restaurants.
Sizzler — an ‘80s restaurant icon known for its affordable all-you-can-eat buffets — filed for bankruptcy in late September, blaming closed restaurants due to the pandemic. The company said its 90-franchised restaurants will not be impacted by the bankruptcy. Some 14 company-operated locations are slated to stay open.
Sizzler has most of its locations concentrated in California and the upper Northwest.
California Pizza Kitchen filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late July. The mostly sit-down pizza outfit with some 200 locations has been crippled by the pandemic, noting in its bankruptcy filing sales were down about 40% year-over-year in the last week of June.
The company planned to cut $230 million in debt via its trip through the courts.
There have now been thirteen bankruptcies of outright restaurant chains or operators of franchises since early April 2020. With each month that has passed, the filings have become prominent as restaurants struggle with weak traffic after being allowed to reopen by states, piles of debt and sky-high rent. The filings could continue as new restrictions on dining rise as the pandemic sees an upward trend in infections.
Besides Ruby Tuesday, Friendly’s and California Pizza Kitchen, the other two high-profile bankruptcies include children’s fun house Chuck E. Cheese and Wendy’s and Pizza Hut franchisee NPC International. Meanwhile, Dave & Busters — which is a part restaurant, part arcade concept — warned in September it may be forced to file for bankruptcy amid pressures from the pandemic.
Credit rating agency Fitch has warned more bankruptcies in the restaurant space wait in the wings.
“Less frequent visits due to shifts in dining to delivery service or to increasingly popular healthier quick-service options will put more pressure on traffic at some brands at the same time the restaurants face increased competition from ready-to-cook meals available in supermarkets or via home delivery,” said Fitch director Lyle Margolis in a report.
Fitch warned that Checkers Drive-In Restaurants and Steak ‘n Shake Operations are at risk of default.
Ultimately, in life after COVID-19 the local restaurant scene may be no more than a KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King and one or two overpriced craft cocktail bars serving tapas which somehow managed to survive the financial distress from the pandemic.
“We have to have a bailout [of the restaurant industry],” said celebrity chef and owner of restaurant Blue Dragon Ming Tsai on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. “I don’t know if the government understands the severity of this problem. We may be left with just chain restaurants and fast-food restaurants if the government doesn’t react.”
Clearly they don’t understand — restaurant industry relief was left out of the most recently passed stimulus package.
Can’t fathom that there will be no #stimulus until after the election. On behalf of millions of restaurant employees - still without work - and hundreds of thousands of independent restaurants striving to provide jobs and return vitality to their communities, please reconsider!
— Danny Meyer (@dhmeyer) October 6, 2020
Tsai thinks when it’s all said and done with the pandemic, some 50% of the country’s 1 million restaurants may no longer be open. His estimate is in line with others Yahoo Finance has talked with in recent months. All experts agree that fresh dine-in restrictions by states on fears of a second wave of COVID-19 infections would be the final straw for small- to mid-size restaurants and even franchisees of well-known chains.
“You don’t know how long it lasts, the predictions are going to be unreliable for the next couple of quarters,” said long-time Denny’s CEO John Miller on the industry upheaval. “There are PPP loans, Main Street lending, a number of programs to help people get through the difficult time. As long as it recovers as fast as the virus is arrested one way or another, then we believe certainly within a year to a year and a half, things could be in pretty good shape and not as damaging as people might believe at the moment. There will be some shakeout.”
This story was originally published on July 13, 2020.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
What’s hot from Sozzi:
Watch Yahoo Finance’s live programming on Verizon FIOS channel 604, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Samsung TV, Pluto TV, and YouTube. Online catch Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, and reddit.