Popular bankrupt retailer is reopening after abruptly closing stores
The company claims that it is "starting from scratch" after its parent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
A beloved retailer is reviving itself from the grave. Popular coffee chain Foxtrot is making a comeback after it closed dozens of its stores in April, causing a stir among its employees, when its parent company Outfox Hospitality announced plans to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Foxtrot, which had stores in Chicago, Texas, and Washington, D.C., announced that it is reopening about a dozen of its stores in existing locations. Two of them are reopening this summer in Chicago.
Related: Employees of bankrupt retailer forced to kick customers out of store
The move from the company comes after David Magruder, managing partner of Further Point Enterprises, won a bid to purchase Foxtrot’s assets on May 10. Mike LaVitola, who founded Foxtrot, will be working with him to revive the company’s losses.
“It’s a totally new company starting from scratch, but (we) have the Foxtrot name and the (intellectual property) and a bunch of our locations,” LaVitola told Crain's Chicago Business. “We’re like a new startup again.”
LaVitola also said in the interview with Crain's that the company will be opening about one or two new stores a year and is opting to not reopen its locations in Washington, D.C., as he is focused on reopening stores that previously brought in the most profits. 
“We wanted to set ourselves up for success and really doing that in the markets we know best, which are our home markets in Chicago and Texas,” said LaVitola. “There’s still a lot of growth ahead. . . .We’re still very ambitious and have big goals, but we can now do it in a more measured way.”
The move from Foxtrot comes after it shocked its employees on April 23 when it shut down its stores nationwide, reportedly giving its workers little to no notice of the move ahead of time.
Most notably, two Foxtrot employees went viral on TikTok after they posted a video of the moment they found out they were being laid off during their shift. In the video, they claimed that they were given a two-hour notice to close the store permanently, forcing them to kick out customers mid-day.
@sadkiwigirl found out 2 hours before that our company was closing nationwide!!! anyone know how to file for unemployment??? if you're able to help out here's my venmo: julia-harlos
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