вЂњTheir intention is almost never to let the chain operate or to resell the chain - it is to basically take it apart,вЂќ he said. These companies typically вЂњoperate as long as they need to in order to extract all of the value and then they move on.вЂќ Industry experts said that Food Management Partners might see more value in a distressed chainвЂ™s real estate, cooking equipment, leases and intellectual property than in its restaurant operations, a notoriously low-margin business.ДЄlex Susskind, professor of food and beverage management at Cornell University, was unfamiliar with Food Management Partners, but noted heвЂ™d heard of other firms that appeared to use similar business models. A year later, the company shuttered 166 related eateries, including outposts of HomeTown Buffet and RyanвЂ™s, about six months after purchase. In 2015, the company closed about 75 locations of Carrows Restaurants and CocoвЂ™s Bakery Restaurant the day after it bought their parent. But its efforts have involved publicly traded firms, ensuring a measure of regulatory oversight.ДЄccording to legal documents, in addition to nine Curry House locations in California, Food Management Partners has, over the last five years, closed more than 200 restaurants shortly after acquiring them:

In the restaurant space, Barington Capital Group has built a reputation as an activist investor, acquiring stakes in the parent companies of Red Lobster and Outback Steakhouse and pushing for management shakeups and spinoffs. They arenвЂ™t open with the employees when they come and take over.вЂќ вЂњThey do it in ways that are very calculated. вЂњI donвЂ™t think they are in the business of operating restaurants - I think they are in the business of trying to make money, but doing so in ways that are probably less than scrupulous and doing so in ways that take advantage of employees and loopholes,вЂќ said lawyer Jeff Dingwall, who unsuccessfully tried a case against Food Management Partners over allegedly improper layoffs in 2015. Food industry experts and attorneys whoвЂ™ve dealt with Food Management Partners told The Times that the companyвЂ™s business model appears to be focused on extracting value from struggling restaurants - not on their long-term viability.

No notice is given to customers or employees, with some learning of their fate when they arrive at work to find the front door locked. The cases point to a pattern: Food Management Partners acquires troubled restaurant groups, then quickly shuts many locations down. Lawsuits filed in recent years by former employees of several eateries owned by Food Management Partners subsidiaries or affiliates center on alleged labor law violations - including the flouting of state and federal regulations designed to protect workers from unexpected mass layoffs. Curry House employees were shocked to learn last week that - with no warning, several said - they had all lost their jobs amid the abrupt closure of the popular Japanese-American restaurant chain.Д«ut perhaps they wouldnвЂ™t have been surprised had they known the track record of the Texas investment company that took over the restaurants in June.

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