The flagship State Street store of Chicago-based Berry Chill LLC, a frozen yogurt purveyor that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, is closed.
A sign on the door at 635 N. State St. said the location is “temporarily closed due to emergency repairs,” though postings on its Facebook page and Twitter stream said it’s in a “legal battle” with its landlord.
Last April, the chain told the Tribune that it had signed some “bad leases” and needed to reorganize.
Chapter 11 enables a debtor to keep its business open while it comes up with a plan to restructure and pay creditors over time.
Berry Chill began operations in March 2008. Its locations include the flagship on State and in the Ogilvie Transportation Center at 500 W. Madison St. It recently closed its location at 132 N. LaSalle St., according to its Web site. The company said its LaSalle site included outdoor seating, laptop stations and free Wi-Fi.
Michael Farah, chief executive, founder and self-described “Yogurteur,” declined to comment.
Berry Chill has claimed to serve more than 1,000 people a day at its State Street location , which hosted viewing parties of the 2008 presidential debates on its four 32-inch plasma TV screens.
Last year, Advertising Age, a trade publication, featured Berry Chill in an article about small businesses that were using services like Twitter effectively.
Isn’t this something. Berry Chill closed two locations in Chicago this year. Yet, Block 37 has opened a frozen yogurt(Starfresh?) shop this past spring and Andy’s Frozen Custer just last week.
Not very surprising to me. Berry Chill was hip and new and cool, but suffered one critical flaw, their product simply didn’t taste very good. Seriously, what venture cap guy did they sell this idea on? Sour Yogurt! Whoever sold them on this idea could sell a proverbial freezer to an eskimo, or a swamp in Florida.
@George: There’s a lot more to business than just the concept/product. I think you could find almost any type of restaurant (or business, for that matter) and find examples of new stores/companies while old stores/companies are going out of business. As you correctly point out, location is one of the key factors. If your income is too low or your expenses are too high, you’re in trouble. Leases & other business agreements, marketing, financing, cash flow and overhead all affect this.
@Andrew: You realize, don’t you, that yogurt in its natural state is tangy? It’s only because American taste buds have been sensitized to SUGAR that we eat excessively sweet yogurt in this country. And I think a lot of people would disagree with you re. the product not tasting good. Tangy (what you call sour) yogurt is huge these days. Pinkberry, which is a West Coast chain, deals exclusively in this. Even Haagen-Daaz now sells a tart yogurt. I can’t stand the excessively sweet stuff.
Cut the b.s. explanation of the legalities. They filed for bankruptcy so that they could renounce leases, which they did.
First, I love the Berry Chill product and I went to the State street location all the time. I have been to Flagship location at least 50 times and I have seen the owner there a total of ZERO of those times. BC is NOT a big company, they are a small business. Any small business where the owner pays no attention to serving its customers directly, no matter how great the product, is going to go out of business eventually because he/she doesn’t have their finger on the pulse of their business. Obviously the ownership of BC thought they were above interacting with customers, but is instead left with almost nothing.
To J: You are soo right.A small business owner who doesn’t watch the store is in trouble very quickly.Wonder if he knew how often the floors were cleaned during the day,the attitudes of the staff,were the tables/counters cleaned immediately,was the product sold past expiration date,equipment clean,so on and so on.
Too Bad.