™Oprah-Backed True Food Kitchen Files for Bankruptcy, Closes 3 in California
The health-food chain closed 12 restaurants, including Westfield Century City and The Point in El Segundo, and plans a court-supervised sale.
The True Food Kitchen at Westfield Century City served its final customers on Sunday. So did the ones at The Point in El Segundo and at Westfield UTC in San Diego.
Nine more of the Oprah Winfrey-backed health-food chain's restaurants around the country closed the same day, after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the weekend, and the company now plans to sell itself in a court-supervised process, the Los Angeles Times reported. In a press release, True Food Kitchen said it and some of its affiliates had filed their petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
The closures undo a big part of the chain's growth. True Food Kitchen had 20 locations in 2017 and grew to 46 across the U.S. After the 12 closures it runs 34 restaurants in 14 states, about a quarter fewer than before Sunday.
Chief Executive Jeff Chandler said in a statement that bankruptcy was the company's best option to "simplify the business" and get back to its strengths. The chain has also filed first-day motions asking the court to let it keep running while the case goes on, including paying employees' wages and benefits.
Five California restaurants are still open, including Pasadena and Newport Beach, and the company says they'll keep serving. Bankruptcy filings show it owes rent at several locations, though, including more than $77,000 to Fashion Island in Newport Beach, the Times reported. The company's total debt is about $42 million.
The concept started in Phoenix in 2008. It was the work of restaurateur Sam Fox and Andrew Weil, a physician, and it sold pasta, salads and chicken built around what the company calls nutrient-dense cooking with carefully sourced ingredients.
Winfrey's name came later. She joined the board in 2018, a year after the chain counted 20 locations, and was there for the expansion that followed. Business Insider reported that she has since left the board but is still a minority investor.
True Food isn't the only Southern California chain in bankruptcy court this fall. Encino-based Marmalade Cafe, known for brunch, filed for Chapter 11 on Sept. 2 and said it owed more than $1 million, according to the Times.
For True Food, what comes next will be decided in Texas. The 34 restaurants still open, from Pasadena to Newport Beach, are now headed for a sale overseen by a bankruptcy judge.
Source: Los Angeles Times, retrieved October 8, 2026. Other sources: finance.yahoo.com.
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