Friday, June 08, 2012

Buffets, Inc. To Close More Restauants

In May, Buffets, Inc. filed their plan to come out of bankruptcy. Their plan includes closing more restaurants as the company tries to build more traffic. There will be a confirmation hearing on the plan on June 13, 2012.

As regular readers know, Buffets, Inc. is the corporation that owns and manages the Old Country Buffet chain and the Ryan's Buffet chain. When the company filed this second bankruptcy since 2008, the company closed 81 restaurants - most of them closed overnight with no warning to unit managers or employees. Since these initial closures we have been made aware of a number of other locations that were closed following this - again, with no warning and done overnight.

The plan just announced to come out of bankruptcy that was filed in court stated: "“The financial projections also assume the closure of underperforming stores over time as it remains within the normal course of business to periodically determine which restaurant leases should be renewed as such leases come up for renewal or extension.”

This all comes following two million dollars in bonuses given at the corporate level to management who put the corporation into bankruptcy. It also comes following an announcement that Buffets, Inc. will be doing dramatic renovations in decoration to the interiors of Old Country Buffet restaurants. From the look of a sample of this new "concept" interior, there is no way that these renovations could be done on current locations without some period of closing down the unit - the changes will be that dramatic - and, frankly, in my opinion, will add nothing to increase business. And with every unit under scrutiny for performance - how could any unit afford the time to be closed for renovation? Again, Buffets, Inc. demonstrates a lack of good leadership, management, and business practice.

From a National Restaurant News article about this plan to exit bankruptcy - "For fiscal 2012, which ends June 27, Buffets expects restaurant sales to decline 13 percent from a year earlier to $1.03 billion, compared with $1.18 billion in fiscal 2011. The company cited the closure of 105 company-owned units during the fiscal year and lower guest counts at remaining restaurants for the drop-off."

Is this incredible? The company blames their drop in sales on not having the restaurants that they closed! This company counted on people traveling a distance to another location when the location near them was closed. From comments on Old Country Buffet's Facebook page from customers - there is no way they are going out of their way to travel to another Old Country Buffet. There are other reasons why there are fewer customers. The menu is tired. While there are some staples that need to remain, they have dropped too many of the things that people enjoyed coming to OCB for. OCB also serves almost the same things every night with little variation. There was a time, years ago, that there was a distinctly different menu every night of the week. Not any longer. They also dropped their seasonal or monthly features. Summer barbecue was always popular and brought people in with real barbecue ribs and brisket. Not the same pork loin that is cut into different shapes and served with barbecue sauce that they call "ribs" now - along with several other names for the same meat and sauce.

This is a company doing nothing to help what it calls "under performing stores" and is just waiting for their leases to end before they put all of these employees out of work and annoy more customers at the same time. The reader who was first to inform me about this most recent news called Buffets, Inc, "A slowly dying company."

We will watch and see.

14 comments:

RemixedCat said...

Renovating? Could you please share with us the pictures of the new "concept" decor?

Writer said...

Here is a link to a photo of the new "concept".

http://media.dtsph.com/sites/channel3000.com/files/imagecache/story615/hometown_buffet_markets_2.jpg

Writer said...

The new location that this picture was taken of is a Hometown Buffet - which has always been one of the Buffets, Inc names - generally used where they can't use OCB. According to the source of this photo the location was formerly an OCB. This has all been shared with me from someone on the inside, so I take it that what is being told to me is correct. This photo is from a an article on this new location that reports on the new name, new look, and new concept for OCB.

Anonymous said...

I agree with a great deal about what you have said about Buffets, Inc. I've gone twice in the past 3 months and I have not been impressed. The menu is largely the same, there are no specials and some of the items are not as good as they once were. the beef roast is subpar; the shrimp is now "popcorn shrimp", and the fried fish is even worse than it once was. They used to have fresh cooked vegetables in season and now it is all canned. When I choose to go to a buffet Golden Corral is a superior choice.

RemixedCat said...

That looks like a copy-cat of Golden Corral..... wow.

If they wanted Golden Corral's decor they should have bought them and that would get rid of thier competition as well! LOL

Writer said...

Don't give them any ideas!

I can't see how they can do this to all of their locations. The two near me don't have the layout in the building to create this - plus it would mean having servers at the counters in the little buildings in the wall - lots of luck on that - they hardly have anyone taking care of the buffet servers on the floor and more often than not there is no one carving and no one at the bakery counter.

RemixedCat said...

Not to mention shutting them down temporarily for this would cost them more then the renovation I'll bet. Wow Buffets Inc really don't know what they are doing.

People don't care about the decor when they go there. They go there to stuff themselves silly. They care more for how the food tastes and to eat tons of it. They don't care how the buffets look as long as they are full of food!

Writer said...

They don't care how the buffets look but they do care that they are clean...

At least I care that it is clean.

RemixedCat said...

Golden Corral isn't clean... At least, the ones I've been to. They were really messy and I saw corn kernels in the ice cream and chunks of chocolate in the chicken, and tons of other food types mixed in with others that shouldn't be there. It was bad.


Now back to Buffets inc. It seems that the Ryan's employees know that they will be out of work soon and they are sad and not near as friendly. I don't blame em. It's sad the looks on their faces and it's so wrong to do that to so many nice people that love their job. :-(

Anonymous said...

As a former long time manager for Ryan's laid off in Jan, I can agree with the statement that The chain is a slowly dying company. Since Buffets took over it has been a slow ride down a very steep hill. Labor cuts, food that suffered and ridiculous price increases for less offerings. My old unit remains open only because the company owns the land it sits on and is not leased like the rest of them. Those units are not "underperforming", they just dont want to pay the sky high rent the leasing company wants, in some cases as much as $30,00 a month!

RemixedCat said...

But Ryan's used to own all the locations right?

What happened?

Writer said...

Ryans was sold to Buffets, Inc. several years ago- look through our archives - 2007/2008 - as we chronicled the story as it was happening. At that time Buffets, Inc. became the owner of ALL Ryans locations and then proceeded to close a good number of them.

Anonymous said...

No wonder they are going out of business. The food served for lunch is leftover dinner. Seniors are the only ones eating there.

Writer said...

They are not going out of business. In fact, Buffets, Inc. has a new CEO that has being plans for the chain. In addition - it is not true that the food served for lunch is leftover from dinner. I have eaten in Old Country Buffet several times at lunch and the food is freshly prepared for lunch. As to seniors being the only ones eating there at lunch - who else is able to take off for over an hour to have a full buffet meal for lunch. In addition, OCB is very popular with seniors because it gives them an opportunity to not have to cook and also be able to eat at an affordable price - especially for one. Plus they are out and not sitting alone at home eating. I have had a lot of things to say about OCB in my articles, but it is important to state what is true and what the above poster states is simply not true.