DALLAS -- Twelve of the 13 remaining Black-Eyed Pea restaurants in Texas have abruptly closed almost ten months after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
“Everybody’s closed except us,” said a woman named Donna, who answered the phone at the Highlands location in Arlington. “We’re the only location that’s open.”
When asked why the last twelve stores closed, she said she did not know why.
No one answered the phone at any of the twelve remaining locations in North Texas, Beaumont, Houston, or San Antonio.
Emails to three attorneys representing Restaurants Acquisition I, LLC., which owns the chain, were not immediately returned on Tuesday. Calls to Restaurants Acquisition I were not answered.
Customers arriving at the Black-Eyed Pea on Coit Road at Belt Line in North Dallas on Tuesday evening were greeted with signs taped on the door which read: “This location is closed until further notice. Thank you.”
Servers at that location told WFAA they were busy with customers on Sunday, the last day the restaurant was open. The employees asked not to be interviewed, since Wednesday is payday, and they still hoped to get compensated for their last two weeks of work.
An entity named Peterson Equities, LLC. locked out Black-Eyed Pea from its Mesquite restaurant at 3825 Pavilion Court for failing to pay rent on September and October, according to a filing on Tuesday in federal court. Peterson, just one of the restaurant’s creditors, is asking a federal bankruptcy court to force the restaurant’s parent company to pay $45,049.49 for September and October rents.
Another landlord named WD University Plaza also filed a motion on Tuesday asking for $12,431.15 from the restaurant chain for failing to pay September’s rent for its long-time location at 900 Airport Freeway in Hurst.
Restaurants Acquisition I, LLC. filed for bankruptcy protection on December 2, 2015, and was working the court and creditors to financially stabilize its restaurants. It renegotiated leases and retooled the menu, but apparently recently did not pay rents on some locations.
The Black-Eyed Pea website remains online.
