Brunch Chain Marmalade Cafe Filed for Chapter 11. Four Cafes Already Closed.

The Encino-based diner, born on Montana Avenue in 1990, lists assets and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million.

Marmalade Cafe, the all-day brunch chain that started on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica in 1990, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 2, 2026. The petition went to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported.

Four of its cafes have gone dark since 2024 — two that year, two more this year. One was the Calabasas cafe at The Commons, open for almost three decades, which served its last plates at the end of July. Anyone who kept a standing weekend table at those four lost it already.

The company blamed the shopping center in an Instagram post when Calabasas closed: “Unfortunately, the ongoing construction throughout the shopping center has resulted in a devastating decline in business.”

The petition put both assets and liabilities in the $1 million to $10 million range, the outlet reported. Among the biggest entries on the debt side are Gilmore Farmers Market, US Foods Inc. and the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Selwyn Yosslowitz, Robert Burns Jr. and Bonnie Burns opened the first location in 1990. The California-inspired menu traveled well: at its widest the chain ran eight branches around Los Angeles County, including Sherman Oaks, Malibu and El Segundo.

In 2007 the Dallas private equity firm Parallel Investment Partners put an undisclosed sum into the brand, and the plan was to grow it past Southern California. That never happened, and business didn't recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.

It isn't the only Los Angeles-founded food company in trouble. Beverly Hills-based FAT Brands Inc. filed for bankruptcy in February, the Business Journal reported. Sprinkles Cupcakes is gone as well: the bakery chain shuttered its remaining storefronts in late 2025 and stopped operating, more than a decade after founder Candace Nelson sold it to the Connecticut private equity firm KarpReilly in 2012.

The Calabasas post went further than construction. The cafe said it asked for help on rent and didn't get it: “after seeking rent relief from our landlord during this extended construction period, the landlord declined to help.”

Source: labusinessjournal.com, retrieved September 21, 2026.