Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen & Market, two popular Chicago-based grocery startups, abruptly ceased operations on Tuesday. The news comes five months after the two businesses announced they were merging into one entity, Outfox Hospitality.
In identical messages posted to both websites and to their various social media accounts, the brands announced that the closure would affect all 33 Foxtrots in Chicago, Austin, Dallas, and the Washington, D.C., area, along with the two Chicago-based Dom’s Kitchen & Market locations. The closure resulted in layoffs of about 1,000 employees, according to various media estimates.
“We explored many avenues to continue the business but found no viable option despite good faith and exhaustive efforts,” the message said. “We understand that this news may come as a shock, and we apologize for any inconvenience it may cause.”
The closure is indeed as abrupt as it appears. Within the past week, Dom’s had posted three job openings on LinkedIn, including one for a junior sous chef. Customers and employees alike posted about the surprise announcement on social media, with some already looking for new roles.
Though the company didn’t specify next steps, the food-and-beverage newsletter Snaxshot is reporting that it will file for bankruptcy and will hold an all-hands meeting this week. The newsletter’s author, Andrea Hernandez, also posted on X/Twitter that Rob Twyman, CEO of Outfox, announced the layoffs via video call and then hung up on employees after, and that customers in stores were kicked out as store managers learned the news. Twyman replaced former CEO Liz Williams in February.
Fast Company reached out to Outfox for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
Foxtrot launched in 2013 as an app-based delivery service, promising to deliver “the best of Chicago” in under an hour. It billed itself as “a new kind of corner store,” carrying a wide assortment of goods, including pre-made meals, alcohol, snacks, grocery items, and gifts. Dom’s was founded by Bob Mariano, a longtime grocery store executive, and opened its first location in 2021 with plans to expand to a total of 15 locations by next year.
The closures also dealt a shocking blow to suppliers like Jordan Tepper, cofounder of Apologue, a Chicago-based cocktail company. Foxtrot was Apologue’s second-most significant retail buyer, Tepper tells Fast Company, and about 20 locations stocked the company’s various products, including Apologue Liqueurs, Big Star Cocktails, and Hoste Gold Fashioned.
For a small, emerging brand like Apologue, Foxtrot brought “instant credibility, availability, and notoriety” and the closure “really hurts” the emerging food and beverage ecosystem. “This will certainly have an impact on our business.”
That said, Williams’s departure so soon after the merger was a bad sign, Tepper says. What’s more, a change that hit closer to home was when a “super-talented” beverage buyer recently stepped down and was never replaced, he adds. “We had been delivering product to their stores as recently as last week, though, and didn’t know it was this imminent.”
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