What led Roadhouse Grill into its current situation?
We have a concentration of our restaurants in the state of Florida. Post 9/11, we had a very difficult time. We had just opened a bunch of new units. We had grown quite a bit. We were impacted tremendously – post 9/11’s effect on the state of Florida (and the tourism industry), primarily. With half our business being in that state, it had a tremendous financial impact on us. We immediately started negotiating with our creditors, seeing that we would get in trouble if things continued. I cannot blame our problems on 9/11, and I know some companies have. I don’t think that’s totally fair. I think (that) if, prior to 9/11, we were on strong footing, with less debt with more controlled growth, 9/11 would have impacted us (a bit) and we would have moved along. It would not have had the detrimental impact it had on us. It was just (adding) fuel to the fire. So how did this affect your operations? We got a petition for an involuntary bankruptcy. Initially, we did not understand why anyone wou
