Burger King files for bankruptcy and permanently closes its doors in 6 states

• Burger King files for bankruptcy.
• Bad news for loyal customers.
• The fast food chain is closing restaurants in 6 states.

Burger King files for bankruptcy. The fast food chain has bad news its loyal customers. The huge franchise has decided to close several restaurants in six states. It is one of the most popular fast food restaurants in the country.

The chain, which has hundreds of stores throughout the country, has filed for bankruptcy. They have announced that several locations will be closing permanently.

Burger King files for bankruptcy

According to The Sun Meridian Restaurants Unlimited, the Utah-based company that operates about 118 Burger King locations in nine states, has disclosed that it is currently $14 million in debt and is filing for bankruptcy.

The burger franchise faces an uphill battle with low sales and crippling inflationary costs, according to court documents. Court documents filed last month reveal that Meridian will close 27 of its locations in Minnesota, Utah, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska and North Dakota.

Burger King closing several locations

Faced with this dire situation for the fast food chain, Restaurant Business reports that several of the closures are in small towns like Lewiston, Montana, which has a population of 6,000. Therefore, it is expected that it will not affect customers in most places.

While the company hopes this will be all of the closures, it hasn’t made any promises to customers. Restaurant Business reported that Meridian does not expect to close “all or even a substantial part” of its restaurants. The franchise also owns a number of Black Bear Diner locations.

Why are they closing?

In recent years Burger King has had trouble as several locations have had fewer customers and, thus, less profit. Despite this reduction in revenue, restaurants did not see a change in rent, debt service, or liabilities, even as the cost of supplies and energy increased.

According to the company, some of its locations never performed well from day one and continually made losses. The franchise and its financial advisers are in talks about rental concessions and how to improve operations to save the other sites.

Hope for the future after Burger King files for bankruptcy

According to Restaurant Business, Burger King has been unable to keep up in a post-pandemic landscape and is reportedly generating relatively low sales of $1.4 million per location. This is around $500,000 less than rival Wendy’s and almost half of what an average McDonald’s location would bring in.

They still hold out hope for the future and believe that the financial restructuring and recent changes made by Burger King will lift them out of this slump.