Bankruptcy Looms for Major Pizza Chain With Chicago Suburban Locations

Photo bySarah Stierch / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

MOD Pizza has over 500 locations across the country with 22 restaurants in Illinois. The Washington-based chain offers fast-casual fare known for its customized, artisan-style pizzas. Customers can choose from over 40 toppings and 8 sauces to create their own masterpiece.

In the Chicago area, MOD Pizza has restaurants in Naperville, Downers Grove, Bolingbrook, Willowbrook, New Lenox, and St. Charles.

MOD Pizza has been experiencing tremendous growth over the past few years, which makes the report of possible bankruptcy a bit of a surprise.

Photo bySarah Stierch / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

The pizza joint is not the only fast-casual restaurant to struggle this year. Although the year is only half over, we've seen several restaurants have to close underperforming stores including:

• Red Lobster
• Denny's
• Hooters
• Boston Market
• Cracker Barrel
• Applebee's

Bloomberg reported last week that MOD Pizza is looking for a potential buyer and preparing for possible bankruptcy filings. According to Restaurant Business Magazine a MOD spokesperson told them, "We’re working diligently to improve our capital structure and are exploring all options to do so. Since this is an ongoing process, it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome.”

Employees of the restaurant have taken to the subreddit r/ModPizza to express their worries with one employee stating, "Sources in the support center identified that the accounts payable team was directed to stop paying any invoices (vendors, suppliers, rent, etc.) over a month ago, with payments only going toward Sysco (for product) and payroll."

The same Redditor pointed out that MOD Pizza co-founders, Scott and Ally Svenson have recently put their 8,500-square-foot Washington home up for sale.

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