Slice of life in wake of Uno bankruptcy

[DainBramaged]

In the aftermath of Uno Chicago Grill's parent company filing for bankruptcy, its Manhattan location at South Street Seaport seemed far away from the bad news. Tables were nearly full when WalletPop popped in at lunchtime on Thursday. Many customers, including yours truly, indulged in the signature Chicago deep dish pizza.

"We're the most popular in the country," Ben Niass, general manager of the South Street Seaport Uno, told WalletPop.

But somebody's not doing well somewhere, even if the company was offering its "no-biggie" line to other financial outlets.
Here's the, ahem, deep dish: Uno Restaurant Holdings Corp. officially asked for Chapter 11 protection on Wednesday, offering as reassurance the $142 million deal that's been in place with bondholders for months. An Uno statement published in the Chicago Tribune Thursday called the debt-for-equity pact a "prearranged reorganization transaction." An UNO marketing executive said this was not necessarily a bad thing, and that Uno should emerge from bankruptcy by spring. In the meantime, all 179 restaurants will remain open.

I've never heard of bankruptcy associated with anything positive, but we'll give Uno a sliver of the benefit of the doubt. Niass is. He said to WalletPop that meetings were ongoing in Yonkers, N.Y., as we spoke to reassure managers that "everybody was safe." But Niass acknowledged that some restaurants had to shape up. The chain attributes its misfortune to less consumer spending and higher costs for ingredients.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/01/22/slice-of-life-in-wake-of-uno-bankruptcy/