For those who ever wished to purchase a lobster tank and an industrial freezer, now’s the time.
Gear from greater than 50 Purple Lobster eating places throughout america was up for public sale on Tuesday, a liquidator stated, because the embattled seafood chain’s web site listed dozens of places as being quickly closed.
The public sale website contains grainy photos of freezers, ovens, blenders and different objects. A photograph of a tank with reside lobsters appeared within the itemizing for the Purple Lobster in Redding, Calif., together with images of a bar with whiskey bottles and a fridge stocked with wine and beer.
The auctions have been scheduled to finish on Thursday, and objects should be picked up on Friday, based on the liquidator, TAGeX Manufacturers. Whoever who wins the bid for a specific restaurant will obtain the whole lot inside it (not together with perishable items and alcohol, the public sale website famous).
Purple Lobster didn’t reply to inquiries Tuesday morning.
Purple Lobster, primarily based in Orlando, Fla., opened its first location in 1968 and now has eating places throughout america, plus others in Asia and Latin America. Its décor was impressed by Bar Harbor, a coastal city in Maine.
Purple Lobster remains to be an American establishment, nevertheless it has been dropping cash for some time. Final yr, its determination to drastically broaden an all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion contributed to an $11 million quarterly working loss.
Bloomberg Information reported final month that Purple Lobster was trying to restructure its debt and contemplating whether or not to file for chapter. The corporate didn’t remark for that article.
For a lot of American households, Purple Lobster has lengthy been an aspirational eating alternative, and for some an introduction to seafood. Within the late Sixties and ’70s, its emblem marketed the restaurant as a cocktail lounge with an oyster bar.
Purple Lobster has additionally filtered into American well-liked tradition, together with within the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy “Completely satisfied Gilmore” and the 2016 Beyoncé track “Formation,” during which she sang about taking a romantic associate to the restaurant.
Normal Mills bought the chain in 1970. It was later owned by Darden Eating places, a Normal Mills subsidiary, and was bought by Golden Gate Capital, a personal fairness agency, in 2014.
Purple Lobster’s largest shareholder since 2020 has been Thai Union Group, a seafood conglomerate primarily based in Thailand. That firm introduced in January that it had determined to exit its Purple Lobster funding. It later stated that it had written down its $530 million stake.
Thai Union stated in its January announcement that Purple Lobster had been damage by the coronavirus pandemic, greater rates of interest, rising labor and materials prices, and “sustained trade headwinds.” It stated in a quick e-mail on Tuesday that it was nonetheless within the technique of “exiting its minority funding” and had no additional remark.
One other main shareholder in Purple Lobster is Seafood Alliance, a Belgium-based affiliation of worldwide seafood companies, based on Thai Union. Seafood Alliance didn’t instantly reply to an inquiry.
Victor Mather contributed reporting.
