Nearly two weeks after closing its restaurants indefinitely, brewpub chain Iron Hill Brewery has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.
The company listed assets of $164,581.02 and liabilities of $20,013,291.14 owed to between 100 and 199 creditors.
In its October 4 filing, Iron Hill’s board of managers determined that “the likelihood of achieving near term liquidity and consummating a going concern transaction” for the company “is increasingly uncertain.” Because “liquidity constraints are significantly curtailing” its “ability to make critical payments” and “continue operating as a going concern,” Iron Hill has opted to shut down and file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The filing listed 22 subsidiaries as co-debtors, most corresponding to the chain’s former locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia and South Carolina.
On September 10, Iron Hill announced it was closing its flagship restaurant in Newark, Delaware; as well as locations in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania; and Voorhees, New Jersey, in an attempt to shore up its remaining 16 stores. Two weeks later, it closed all 16 with little notice to employees or patrons.
Iron Hill’s assets include a BankUnited N.A. checking account ($125,000), a Pinnacle Bank checking account ($5), $17,943.20 in accounts receivable and prepayments to the following vendors:
- Pulseaway IT remote software, $3,380.90;
- Asana marketing event software, $3,118.46;
- NextGlass’ Untappd, $3,133.46.
The chain’s only secured creditor is BankUnited N.A., which holds a general UCC lien against Iron Hill in the amount of $17,250,191.28. The filing includes nearly 30 pages of creditors with unsecured claims, who can be made whole only after the secured creditor is satisfied.
Those unsecured creditors include craft beverage law firm the Barnes Beverage Group ($61,903.50), ingredients purveyor Briess Industries ($20,198), the Delaware Brewers Guild ($176.21), organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry ($384,651.81), reservation system OpenTable ($37,322.12) and Yakima Chief Hops ($15,878), among many others.
Pennsylvania attorney general Dave Sunday advised patrons with now-unusable gift cards to Iron Hill to “dispute the charges with your credit card company,” WGAL reported. Sunday recommended gift card holders lodge complaints with the state’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Revisit prior Brewbound coverage of Iron Hill’s closing: