The upscale convenience store chain Foxtrot will reopen its 1562 N. Wells St. location in Old Town Thursday, the company said Tuesday.
The chain, which abruptly shuttered in April months after a failed merger with upscale grocery chain Dom’s Kitchen & Market, has started reopening Chicago locations with the backing of a New York-based investment firm and under the leadership of original founder Mike LaVitola. The first store to reopen was a Gold Coast location earlier this month. The company plans to eventually reopen about a dozen stores by spring, moving at a slower pace than originally planned.
At a virtual event hosted by the Executives’ Club of Chicago last week, LaVitola said hiring of new staff, city licenses and lease renegotiations were among the hurdles facing the company in its comeback. Meanwhile, prospective class-action lawsuits filed by former Foxtrot and Dom’s employees who found out they were out of their jobs in the middle of their shifts back in April are in limbo pending the resolution of parent company Outfox Hospitality’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware. The new Foxtrot is not a party to those lawsuits. The company said some former Outfox workers had been rehired to work at the new entity but declined to say how many.
At the Executives’ Club event, LaVitola said Foxtrot planned to revamp some of its processes and offerings in the reopened stores, including by narrowing the number of individual products on shelves and refreshing its cafe selections. In a news release Tuesday, the company said the new cafe menu in Old Town would include breakfast tacos, pressed paninis and exclusive coffee blends from Chicago-based partners including Metric and Kyoto Black.