An employee at an unknown Foxtrot location captured the moment on TikTok Tuesday when she found out that the chain was closing in less than two hours and was forced to kick out customers who were in the store just before it closed.
The employee, identified as Giulia and posting as @sadkiwigirl, stated in the video, “So we just found out our store is closing today at 12.”
A co-worker mentioned that it was 10:14 in the morning when they were filming.
Giulia said she had been told that “the chain is shutting down” when they were notified about the noon closure.
“I have a few more hours on my shift… When do I take my 30?” the TikToker joked.
The video showed that the location was full of people drinking coffee and working on their laptops when the closure was announced to employees.
The two employees in the video were forced to kick customers out in order to close.
The video ended with a clip of a customer leaving, with the caption, “Kicked out all the customers!!”
Another caption to the video read, “Found out 2 hours before that our company was closing nationwide!!! anyone know how to file for unemployment???”
The Chicago-based company closed all 33 of its locations in Illinois, Texas, and Washington, D.C. areas, as well as two Dom’s grocery stores on April 23, it announced in a statement.
“We explored many avenues to continue the business but found no viable option despite good faith and exhaustive efforts,” the statement read.
The abrupt closure also came as a surprise to vendors, several of whom said they had no idea about the closure until it happened.
“I was just in Chicago on a sales call last Friday,” Señor Mango founder Dani Wong told Forbes. “They were a very important account for us, and the second retailer to carry our product.”
Foxtrot was known for carrying smaller brands and was considered an important launch pad for up-and-coming food vendors, the publication said.
When Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen & Market merged in late 2023, they formed the entity Outfox Hospitality, which had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy days before the closures.
Equity investors had put $194 million into Outfox, and the group had plans to expand into Boston and other markets as recently as 2022.
But the brand may not get off so easily when it comes to the way it handled the closures.
A class action lawsuit was filed the day after the closures on behalf of the 1,000 employees who were terminated without notice.
The lawsuit alleges that Outfox Hospitality violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which, in most cases, requires 60-day notice before layoffs.
The legislation does not exempt employers who file for bankruptcy, either.
The suit is asking for 60 days of unpaid wages and salaries for the employees as well as payment of unused holiday and vacation pay.
Commenters on the TikTok video, which had 2.8 million views on Friday, noted that Foxtrot “is always so busy” and wondered where the money was going.
Modern Retail pointed to a different picture of the company as a whole, however.
Its investigation detailed mismanagement of vendor practices, inconsistent sales in some locations, and lower-than-projected overall sales as the economy began to slow in 2023.
By the time of the merger in 2023, Foxtrot was reporting about $35 million less in sales than the projected $165 million.
The situation had apparently not improved in 2024.
Dom’s Kitchen Market did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the closures or the lawsuit.
