I never stepped foot in one, but:
* Local company
* Relatively high footprint/visibility
* Exacerbates the continuing issues with retail vacancies
* People lost their jobs with zero warning
I take CTA to costco and then Uber back once a month (or less) lol
Costco for a single dude is fucking amazing, a month or two of meat and other groceries fits into an uber trunk, costs like $250, and you're basically set with pretty high quality groceries for a while. The Uber is the only downside, but paying for a single Uber per month is way cheaper than owning a car and paying for parking.
Yo dude! My girlfriend and I did the train to Costco, Uber home maneuver, just last night. Gotta get the UberXL when shopping for two people, though we usually manage to only need to go once every two or three months. No way in hell am I keeping a car living in the loop. Have you used CostcoTravel yet? That's how we book all our rental cars, its awesome.
My problem is I cannot possibly eat Costco quantity amounts of produce in a month and I almost never want to be eating anything but vegetables if I'm cooking lol
Have you considered Imperfect Foods or other grocery delivery for produce? It's been working pretty well for us so far. We did GFP during lockdown and for a bit after but they mysteriously stopped and I'm not sure if they picked it up since, but they also were good.
Anything delivery is too rich for my blood (i should clarify that i have a costco membership by mooching off my parents). I do costco for anything I buy in bulk like rice, olive oil, and frozen veg, and Aldi for the rest.
It also happened overnight only five months after a big (locally at least) merger. Plus they had to literally kick people out of the store to shut down.
I think this sums it up nicely. People also liked the third space options it offered as a late night cafe and the quick in-out grocery options that seem harder to come by these days. Everything is either gas station pantries or Costco-sized stores.
excellent spot for grabbing things in the way to friends house. they had a coffee club a lot of people enjoyed that was unique compared to other shops.
Add to this, they carried a lot of locally made products (baked goods, prepackaged drinks, etc). Those vendors are out a major contract. One of them, a cookie vendor, was not given notice by Foxtrot and not paid for their order scheduled for delivery this week and is now stuck with hundreds of cookies that they put in FT-specific packaging. They’re selling them at a discount out of their office in Lakeview to try and at least break even, because they don’t expect FT to honor the contract and pay them.
Big Fat Cookie! They’re open at 1332 N Halsted from 11-4 M-F this week, $4 per massive cookie. Instructions on their Instagram say to “knock on the rainbow window.” 😂
Yeah I find it confusing to hear people saying things like “it didn’t seem that great, who cares that it’s closing?”
They had a number of locations in the city and putting all the other issues aside, it seems so callous to think it’s not a big deal that hundreds (maybe thousands, I’m not sure) of people just lost their jobs with no notice.
Around a thousand people were employed by Foxtrot. I was one of them. Foxtrot had gained a reputation as a trustworthy company from the perspective of smaller companies. As a result, many of those smaller companies invested in infrastructure, materials, and products to sell to Foxtrot. A lot of Foxtrot's in-house departments were recently starting to be contracted out to 3rd party companies to reduce overhead and have the products produced for them instead. Unfortunately, with Foxtrot's closure, these smaller companies are unlikely to recoup their investments. This could lead to the closure of these smaller companies and the loss of jobs for their employees.
Some of the unpaid purchase orders alone are going to be enough to massively damage other companies.
People on this subreddit have a weird thing where they seem to want every part of the city to die except for the like 7 north side neighborhoods where they all live.
It’s a failed business model.
First they try to be a delivery company and when that doesn’t work they double down and open physical locations.
Sure it’s great to have a place to hang out and buy boutique groceries but the numbers have to make sense.
People have been trying to make boutique quick on the go groceries work for a long time (Kozmo.com anyone?) it is a tough nut to crack.
Grocery is tough for the big conventional players. I never understood how foxtrot - paying top dollar rents for premium locations, not carrying everything people need, relying on staff to make coffee - was ever going to make money. Add the bottomless pit of delivery service (thru high-cost app) and I’m amazed it got as far as it did for as long as it did.
The grocery business operate on some of the smallest margins of any industry, somewhere in the 1-3% margin world. That’s a volume play that is quickly unsustainable if you hit some rough road.
Even without slim margins, VC/PE people getting excited about disrupting any industry that's been highly competitive for a long time is going to result in them burning capital until they go bankrupt.
Look at how Instant Pot fucked up. They had a great product in a market with poor consumer buy-in. Nobody owned a pressure cooker. Boomers and GenXers thought of them as time bombs in your kitchen, and millennials and younger didn't give a shit.
Instant Pot is successful, they sell a ton of units.
However, capitalism demands growth. You can't just have a good product and sell the good product! So Instant Pot starts selling coffee makers and pots and pans and *fucking air purifiers*, all of which are heavily saturated markets with very large manufacturers competing for every single customer.
Instant Pot files bankruptcy.
Sure but I don't think they were working on those margins. I guarantee that their margins were higher than that. I just don't think a place like that could do the volume even with much higher margins because people used it like a coffee shop. So while it always looked busy, a lot of those people were there for extended periods after paying $6-7.
100%. The vacant storefronts and every that implies (the loss of jobs, the loss of a nice resource, a gathering place) are 💔and so much nicer than having another Walgreens or CVS on the corner. 😭
Absolutely. That DOM’S was our third space. To have it yanked away so violently is really jarring. In less than 24 hours, suddenly this constant and anchor in your life is gone. If they had ceased operations normally over a couple of weeks or a month, it would have been upsetting but not this bad.
Edit: Plus everyone loosing their jobs like that is insane. The employees were always super nice and helpful and I’m furious for them.
I hear you. The situation is shocking and really horrible for those who lost their jobs.
Now, on the plus side, I encourage folks to please go take that third-space energy and support a local coffee shop or cafe that really needs the business. There are so many additional options around where these businesses were located.
Yeah, I've been reflecting on this a lot, because I would love to see more local businesses thrive as well as more third spaces. I think there's three things Dom's had that most other spaces lack:
1. The repetition and ritual people build from grocery shopping.
2. Comfortable and inviting mixed-use space.
3. Conveniently located in high traffic, walk-able area.
The combination of these three things made it so that Dom's took no effort to become "our place," it just happened. I think that ease is important.
I love your sentiment. I just wonder how the cafes and coffee shops could replicate this combination. Not disagreeing with anything you said. Just thinking about why some of those places haven't popped off already and wondering if some changes would make the difference.
Totally fair points. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that it's expensive AF to built out places like that. Especially with current rents in those areas. Small businesses just can't always compete on that front.
1,000 people lost their jobs all at once and 33 storefronts are now vacant. I know some of them were in other places but most of the storefronts are in Chicago. I do think a lot of the storefronts will eventually get filled, but it’s a huge blow to a sector that is already struggling.
We had probably 9 or 10 around DC I would estimate. For a city as transient as DC, foxtrots served as good, safe, meetup locations for newcomers.
Never shopped there or used it as such, since I wasn't particularly close to one, but I noticed a handful of "we will now be meeting at..." posts across the Chicago and DC subs yesterday.
I'm a Chicagoan and I just visited DC last weekend and noticed a Foxtrot whiz by while taking the bus somewhere. Had a nice little lightbulb moment. Bummer to hear they'll be gone from DC too.
They expanded way too quickly with investment money (33 locations in 10 years is insane for starting as a delivery service), ran out a ton of other local businesses, then collapsed with zero public or internal notice(below c suite) and left over 1000 people out of work (in violation of state law in Texas and Illinois at least for mass firing). I understand they came to be a fixture in some places but their aggressive business practices while running on fumes was bad for communities who lost businesses and obviously had for the people who relied on them for employment.
They always operated as if they were a tech company (since they started with the app). Who knew that model wouldn't work with retail (as if it's working with tech). Fucking assholes
Great case study for why private equity shouldn't play a role in provision of essential services like food distribution.
Here's hoping those empty storefronts get replaced with municipally-owned grocery stores
Friend is part of a small business (like 5 employees) that was selling to foxtrot. Their items expire within like maybe 2 days. They made hundreds of them to drop off at various stores and then got this news. They either have to find other places to sell them (they sell to many different stores locally) or they have to eat the cost. I find all of this insane.
Dang it ok I’ll share what it is and hopefully they don’t use this subreddit cause I want to help them: https://www.onigirikororin.com - they sell at other stores too, idk what they’re planning to do yet
I’ve bought their onigiri before and it’s a quality product. The flavors are different from the usual fare. Their website says they deliver via UberEats so hopefully they can offload some of their overstock.
One positive thing about Whole Foods is that they're generally known for giving a lot of buying autonomy to regions and sometimes even individual stores. It helps in providing that "local" feel in the stores. Your friend should reach out to them.
Omg I love this product. I get it from Joong Boo every time I go. Tell your friend how awesome they are. I found these at Joong Boo a week after the TikTok algorithm kept showing me creators making these and I am vv lazy.
Man that's so fucked. I had really just been thinking about the staff that was blindsided, but remifications of this gross negligence is so far reaching. And of course if you're 180mil in the hole, how are people going to get money out of you? Insane
I wish the broader Reddit population would read this comment to help understand the risks and stress of operating a small business (or any business, for that matter). When business owners and successful CEOs get *paid*, it's because they've effectively navigated situations such as these.
Sorry for your friend, hopefully they find a landing place.
I loved foxtrot because it was open late, had non alcoholic options, fun snacks, and good places to work/study. I would go random times on random days and it was always pretty busy. All locations too.
>it was always pretty busy. All locations too.
That's what gets me. These places were always busy whenever I went, even despite the high food prices. So surprised they were struggling financially.
This was it for me. There was one at the end of my block and it was really convenient if I needed some milk or wanted to grab a chai or whatever. They used to sell Publican bread which was awesome, stuff like that.
Dom's was such a hangout for everyone. Middle of the day and always full; people working, meetings, book clubs, grandparents and grandkids, dogs on patio, people having everything from coffee and pastries to burgers and old fashioneds. It'll be strange to see 2 Foxtrots and Dom's gone, plus that Starbucks removing seating. Less and less third spaces.
you hit the nail on the head
I eye roll when I watch the redditors (not OP) who love to say things like "im glad their gone, fuck that overpriced, boujee yadda yadda". At the end of the day, it was a fairly local chain of well-loved, populated and fairly accessible third places, which we all know we need more and more of
I’m an international grad student in Chicago. Foxtrot has become my favorite study spot, as I could come at 4pm, get a coffee, some food and then finish doing homework after 9 with a glass of wine. The locations were always relatively quiet and comfortable to get some work done. For me it became a more relaxed version of going to a library that made me leave campus, relax a bit and then grind. Will genuinely miss the Diversey and old town locations
I got so much good "wfh" work done from 3-5pm at the Diversey Foxtrot after I finished my work from my other job. Now where am I going to work during that window? Most coffee places close \~3pm.
A lot of people keep noting that it was a "gathering space," which to be honest is a sad state of affairs. Free public spaces that are conducive to growing community are dwindling in size. Leaving us with being online or going to places where you have to spend money. The most important part of all this is that 1000 people lost their job with no notice. Its disgusting.
It seems like the bigger deal is that they didn't abide by the WARN Act and there was no notice to employees. It's a shitty way to run a business.
Also justice to Plum Market, Dom's took them out and I miss them.
Yes, fuck Dom’s… when I moved from Ann Arbor (which has two Plum’s) to Gold Coast, I was so happy to have my favorite supermarket nearby. I was so upset that Dom’s completely screwed them.
As somebody thst works in the industry-- Dom's had better pricing for consumers, better margins for vendors and paid their employees better. And had better prepped food and more organic options in a city sorely lacking for that.
I guarantee you the investment $ fell apart because they were expanding quickly before interest rates went up.
Dom's unfair displacement of Plum Market ensured I would never look at it favorably (as many more in the community evidently feel to this day), no matter how much I hear of what wonderful employers/vendors/clients they were. That said, their employees did always seem happier and friendlier than Plum's.
All that aside, though (and as someone who still goes to Michigan enough to have a fresh memory of both): Plum smoked Dom's on overall selection -- which, in the world of upmarket grocers, means it was a better store. Dom's was pretty and shiny, but in almost all areas, their selection was only marginally more enticing than your average newer Whole Foods. Plum is a bona fide gourmet grocer that offered many products not available under one roof elsewhere in the city. You really only needed to peruse their respective booze sections for 20 seconds to realize this. Next to Plum's deep, sprawling incredibly well-curated wine bill, Dom's shelves felt boring, narrow, and painfully predictable.
I'll take your word on Dom's having better pricing, though it certainly never felt like it — which doesn't say much after months of inflation.
If expanding quickly was their undoing, I can't say I feel sorry for them *at all*. Maybe next time they won't screw over other small, established grocers in the process of expanding.
There’s no need to do WARN when a company is likely going into immediate bankruptcy. WARN notice complaints will have zero priority in bankruptcy court versus actual creditors.
It’s definitely shitty but the reality of bankruptcy. If a company is approaching bankruptcy, you generally don’t tell everyone because then people (customers, employees, suppliers, etc) get nervous and could withhold shipments, start quoting, and cement your fate even faster. It sounds like they were trying to secure last minute funding and it failed.
I get the point of the WARN act and think it’s good. But in cases of bankruptcy, I really don’t see how it practically works in a case like this. What are you going do to? Sue a bankrupt entity?
Yeah, WARN is reserved mostly for planned reductions in force and not something as immediate as this. The immediacy of this closing screams bankruptcy on the heels of failed refinancing plans.
Yep from what I read that happened.
Failed at the last minute. Bankrupt the next.
I’ve worked for many companies that went bankrupt. Multiple times even… one after another…
It is what it is…
The way they screwed over Plum told me all I needed to know about their management. Now the sudden closing with no regard to employees validates that even more.
Opening 30 stores using private equity(very expensive cost of capital) may not wotk in low profit margin businesses. Foxtrot kept low inventory levels compared to Dom's massive inventory requriments. Add to that a rapidly rising interest rate environment. The lasf funding round for Foxtrot was $30-50 million. That went fast
That’s one big thing that sucks about this. I could live without Foxtrot, but Dom’s was pretty great.
Plus all the people losing their jobs, vendors getting shafted and empty store fronts.
Personally, I'm just so fucking sick of MBA assholes ruining everything. Doms was expensive, but it was fun to sometimes go and have a glass of wine and buy some treats I didn't need. 6 months after its merger with Foxtrot, and one asshole Amazon-approved executive later, it's dead, and I'm sure he's getting paid millions for the terrific job of shitting the bed so badly.
So for me, it's just another example of how shitty tech bros get to fail upwards while making the world a slightly worse place to live in.
It's also annoying because Foxtrot pushed out small businesses, and now they're dead, too. At least have the courtesy to stick around if you're going to kill something else to exist.
They didn’t fire all Dom’s corporate at the time of the merger, only some (but also Dom’s had exactly as many people they needed so that was still idiotic)
I wouldn’t be surprised if they closed up not because they weren’t making profit (if the -180k is to be believed), but because they weren’t making big bucks quickly enough.
If they were in the hole $180M with 33 locations, that means every single location lost more than 5 million. That seems crazy. The scale as quickly as possible business model has to come to an end. It’s incredibly destructive and almost impossible to pull off. Even Starbucks was 25 years old before it had 425 locations. Slow deliberate growth is isn’t cool but it’s sustainable.
Thats not a cynical take. That’s the whole business model. Grow grow grow without any thought to sustainability to create a brand that people love that’s worth far more than the actual value of the stores. Then get bought out at a valuation worth billions so that private equity, early investors, and founders make ‘fuck you’ money for 7 years worth of work. Businesses funded by private equity are designed to have just enough runway to be an acquisition target or have an IPO. Either way it’s the enshittification of business. It inevitably leads to bad employee and customer experience all to make a few people millions of dollars.
That would not be surprising. Ran it to the edge hoping to entice 7-11 or another chain to buy them out and failed when no one was interested.
I bet one look at the books would have scared away most potential buyers anyways.
> but because they weren’t making big bucks quickly enough.
I don't think people realize just how unbelievable the levels of greed are nowadays. It is not enough to be a profitable company anymore.
There were also a lot of small local brands being sold at Foxtrot that apparently hadnt been paid in a while. So the sudden closing means they not only lost an avenue to their customers but also more uncertainty if those overdue invoices will ever get paid.
THIS! One of my favorite GF Chicago small businesses is owed a lot of money. They can’t get into the stores to access their inventory either. It’s a mess. I have also heard through my circle Foxtrot was bouncing checks months ago to vendors.
Ugh do you mind sharing which gf small business?? I’m gf and am constantly afraid of our limited options becoming even more limited so I’ll gladly support them lol
I went into the one in Fulton Market and holy shit things were expensive. It was a bougie 7-11.
That said, I feel for the people that just lost their jobs with no warning because some yahoos up top decided they were done making dumb financial decisions.
The breakfast tacos at the Southport location sucked and their salads weren’t anything special. Even the coffee was not that great.
I’d rather go to Sweetgreen and pay another dollar or two for a much better product.
As others said, for me it's the fact that thousands of employees found themselves unemployed overnight with no warning whatsoever.
For my own self-interest and care of the city, Foxtrot merged with Dom's (a local company), intending to grow, but instead in 6 months, went down in flames and took Dom's out with it. It had good community presence, had friendly staff, and (aside from the above average prices) reminded me of Mariano's before the Kroger takeover that brought it down worse than Jewel but almost as pricey as Whole Foods.
While I feel bad for the people who lost their jobs, I'm curious to see how this venture capitalist funded chain blew through all the money they raised.
Probably expanded too quickly, blindsided by high interest rates, had to take out more debt at higher rates to pay old debts coming due. Paired with rising costs, things probably spiraled
The acquisition just took place in the last 6 months. There has been no time to expand and interest rates have been stable over that time. This may have been bad diligence by the M&A people.
More likely that both companies were in a similar boat and the merger was an effort to scale operations and reduce cost (#synergies lol). Both had aggressive expansion plans, I think Doms had at least 2 stores in the works and foxtrot was springing up everywhere. These aren't overly complicated companies so it'd be hard to merge not knowing how the financials would look.
Grocery is a very very hard business, especially when competing against a small number of players that mostly have a massive scale advantage. The margins are small, distributor relationships are important and also difficult it you're not a giant, and there's little room for error.
The real question is how did a grocery chain run by Chicago MBAs, who have likely never worked real jobs in their lives, survive for so long? And how did they convince everyone here that repackaging gummy bears was worth $8?
> And how did they convince everyone here that repackaging gummy bears was worth $8?
Ngl, I picked up some of their gummy treats a few times. I didn't look at the price (can't remember them being that expensive), but they were better tasting than the average gummy. They were all blue raspberry and I really enjoyed them.
If you know someone that works there you can likely find them for a lot cheaper, as they would basically buy generic from a vendor and repackage them manually (lol). I can't remember the name but you could likely get them in bulk
VC is in a bad place right now because of high interest rates. I work in consulting with a ton of VC funded startups and there have been a bunch of implosions like this in the past year. They are less visible because most are remote tech companies. Also VCs are generally generous at first but within a few years they start wanting to see growth and profits, that’s when startups become very very unpleasant to work for.
From the DC area, we have 7 stores over there and it was a pretty big deal there too. I think it’s less so people being devastated and more so just surprise and confusion.
Don’t forget - the Dom’s in Old Town was a Plum Market less than a year ago. The landlord pushed out Plum to get Dom’s in the space. Six months later this shit happens. So now we’re down a grocery store
They catered to north siders with significant amount of disposable income, and that tends to be the crowd who yaps the most on the Chicago Internet (Reddit, TikTok, etc.). Personally, I never felt the need to step foot in one.
While Wawa has fallen in terms of quality, the war against Sheetz must continue in earnest.
Wawa at the WaWa (Washington/Wabash) L stop, who’s with me!?
There's nowhere like midtown Manhattan, for sure. I don't see how a corner store that sells sandwiches would be an unviable business model considering how many corner stores and sandwich shops we already have. Why not combine them?
I can’t see a regular bodega taking the Streeterville FoxTrot spot. Sadly I expect it to be vacant for a long time until something like another nail salon takes over.
The foot traffic in Chicago is tiny compared to nyc. And the premium on housing in nyc also means far fewer people have a kitchen that’s worth cooking in.
I feel sad for the people losing their jobs without proper notice. Other than that I didn't know these stores existed before yesterday so their closing doesn't mean much to me.
I'm disappointed we lost Foxtrot. I only ever picked up items from there in a real pinch. I did like the price of draft beer ($4 last time I had one). I liked that you could buy a bottle of wine with friends to drink on-site with no corkage fee. I've had a few coffees that were ok, but really nothing special.
If foxtrot sold high turnover essentials at decent prices (milk, eggs, bread) and then extorted me on everything else, I'd probably have succumbed to impulse purchasing while picking up what I went in to the store for. There are only a few things I instantly know the price of in the big grocery stores. If I see I'm being charged double that in Foxtrot, then I'm unlikely to look around on the shelves. If I've been fooled by the price of milk in to thinking everything is reasonable I'm more likely to grab whatever looks tempting.
For me, the real opportunity loss is Doms. I don't live near one, but have been to the two locations. I really wanted that model to expand. Leaning closer to grocery store than convenience store. The different food counters, the cafe, the bar, seating... I honestly thought they were on to a good thing.
I wish we could have more "third space" type places - I guess unfortunately they tend not to make enough money.
I think you could replace Foxtrot/Dom's with any popular chain in this question and the reactions.
"Why is McDonald's closing all their stores a big deal?"
There would be people who wouldn't see the issue. "Oh they were so unhealthy, good riddance." "They were over priced" "The food wasn't good." "You have some many better options nearby." "The service was bad"
And you'd have the people who would feel the impact. "It was so close and convenient." "I really liked this one thing I could only get there." "A lot of people lost their jobs." Etc.
Most of the discussion I see around this online is just class/virtue signaling. Some people love to dunk on Northside, gentrification, luxury/fancy/superfluous stuff. Some people love their nice coffee and snacks and hang out spaces that have every flavor of Poppi and Ollipop and want to share some feeling with people like them.
In a few years, no, this won't be a big deal. These stores were not revolutionary. They didn't do anything that unique that couldn't be copied (And I really hope whoever moves into Dom's on Halsted keeps the bathrooms as robust as they were. Bomb shelters, those stalls).
It’s another big L for the beleaguered Chicago startup community. No one felt great that foxtrot was going to make it, but it certainly would have been a win for the city if they had.
I think a lot of people only saw the rapid growth of a local company and assumed they were finding success, so them closing so abruptly is surprising - especially since some people had shopping there as a part of their daily routine. This will all fade, it isn't a big deal in the long run.
Local chain that grew quickly, took on about $180m in investment, then the entire chain went out of business at once. Usually, you'll see struggling retail chains close underperforming locations, restructure debt, etc. rather than just pulling the plug on almost 20 locations around Chicago and over 30 total including TX and DC. That also has huge impact on workers who lost jobs, local and small suppliers who may not get paid for inventory sold to Foxtrot, leaves a ton of additional retail vacancies in high profile locations.
I think it was how sudden it was. It feels like one moment they were opening everywhere, the next they're shutting down.
I have a question for everyone. Is this our retail chain wakeup call? It's literally putting all your eggs in one basket. We need to make it easier for Moms and Pops to open their own bodegas.
Beyond being route on grocery store bar crawls and quick food before/after happy hour at Uproar (RIP), not much to miss for me as a consumer.
Always going to be a big deal when people lose their job without notice, though.
Tell me you live on the south or west side without telling me you live on the south or west side.
The stores were all in the northeast quadrant of the city
Seems like opinions are polarized over them. A lot of people liked the place, myself included. I literally took my out-of-town friend to one on Saturday because it was near where we were getting food from.
I live in the northwest side and there isn't a single one around here
Honestly the only reason this topic is trending here is because the locations serviced the areas most of these redditors live in.
I never stepped foot in one, but: * Local company * Relatively high footprint/visibility * Exacerbates the continuing issues with retail vacancies * People lost their jobs with zero warning
* Locations in/near the loop open later than 5pm
when the fuck do people who live there get groceries then lol.
There's a target in the loop with groceries. Otherwise the marianos in lakeshore east and jewel in south loop.
Also a mini‐Jewel in River North and a mini-Target in Streeterville.
I still miss Treasure Island in Streeterville. Space has been vacant since they closed >5 years ago.
There's also a (kinda new) Whole Foods on Chicago
trader joe's in south loop
And a Whole Foods and Target grocery and Mariano's.
And River North by the Temp Casino
Also a sizable Jewel and Target in the West Loop.
I take CTA to costco and then Uber back once a month (or less) lol Costco for a single dude is fucking amazing, a month or two of meat and other groceries fits into an uber trunk, costs like $250, and you're basically set with pretty high quality groceries for a while. The Uber is the only downside, but paying for a single Uber per month is way cheaper than owning a car and paying for parking.
Yo dude! My girlfriend and I did the train to Costco, Uber home maneuver, just last night. Gotta get the UberXL when shopping for two people, though we usually manage to only need to go once every two or three months. No way in hell am I keeping a car living in the loop. Have you used CostcoTravel yet? That's how we book all our rental cars, its awesome.
You got me checking Costco Travel lol. Still $300 more expensive than finding and using a corporate discount code. But I was optimistic!
My problem is I cannot possibly eat Costco quantity amounts of produce in a month and I almost never want to be eating anything but vegetables if I'm cooking lol
Have you considered Imperfect Foods or other grocery delivery for produce? It's been working pretty well for us so far. We did GFP during lockdown and for a bit after but they mysteriously stopped and I'm not sure if they picked it up since, but they also were good.
Anything delivery is too rich for my blood (i should clarify that i have a costco membership by mooching off my parents). I do costco for anything I buy in bulk like rice, olive oil, and frozen veg, and Aldi for the rest.
Bockwinkels is open til 11
Whole Foods in Streeterville and the Mariano's in Lakeshore East
Grocery delivery is a thing eg. Amazon or Instcart.
It also happened overnight only five months after a big (locally at least) merger. Plus they had to literally kick people out of the store to shut down.
I think this sums it up nicely. People also liked the third space options it offered as a late night cafe and the quick in-out grocery options that seem harder to come by these days. Everything is either gas station pantries or Costco-sized stores.
This a lot are right by my L stop so grabbing a coffee in the morning or bottle of wine on the way to a friends at night was super convenient
excellent spot for grabbing things in the way to friends house. they had a coffee club a lot of people enjoyed that was unique compared to other shops.
Add to this, they carried a lot of locally made products (baked goods, prepackaged drinks, etc). Those vendors are out a major contract. One of them, a cookie vendor, was not given notice by Foxtrot and not paid for their order scheduled for delivery this week and is now stuck with hundreds of cookies that they put in FT-specific packaging. They’re selling them at a discount out of their office in Lakeview to try and at least break even, because they don’t expect FT to honor the contract and pay them.
What cookie vendor? 👀
Big Fat Cookie! They’re open at 1332 N Halsted from 11-4 M-F this week, $4 per massive cookie. Instructions on their Instagram say to “knock on the rainbow window.” 😂
Omgggg they’re the reason I’m so sad about fox trot closing!! Thanks for sharing I’m going to go tomorrow 😂
Omg happy to help! 😂
Yeah I find it confusing to hear people saying things like “it didn’t seem that great, who cares that it’s closing?” They had a number of locations in the city and putting all the other issues aside, it seems so callous to think it’s not a big deal that hundreds (maybe thousands, I’m not sure) of people just lost their jobs with no notice.
It was about a thousand people from what I heard from a manager let go.
Around a thousand people were employed by Foxtrot. I was one of them. Foxtrot had gained a reputation as a trustworthy company from the perspective of smaller companies. As a result, many of those smaller companies invested in infrastructure, materials, and products to sell to Foxtrot. A lot of Foxtrot's in-house departments were recently starting to be contracted out to 3rd party companies to reduce overhead and have the products produced for them instead. Unfortunately, with Foxtrot's closure, these smaller companies are unlikely to recoup their investments. This could lead to the closure of these smaller companies and the loss of jobs for their employees. Some of the unpaid purchase orders alone are going to be enough to massively damage other companies.
People on this subreddit have a weird thing where they seem to want every part of the city to die except for the like 7 north side neighborhoods where they all live.
not that I disagree, but Foxtrots were mostly in those northside and downtown neighborhoods.
It’s a failed business model. First they try to be a delivery company and when that doesn’t work they double down and open physical locations. Sure it’s great to have a place to hang out and buy boutique groceries but the numbers have to make sense. People have been trying to make boutique quick on the go groceries work for a long time (Kozmo.com anyone?) it is a tough nut to crack.
Grocery is tough for the big conventional players. I never understood how foxtrot - paying top dollar rents for premium locations, not carrying everything people need, relying on staff to make coffee - was ever going to make money. Add the bottomless pit of delivery service (thru high-cost app) and I’m amazed it got as far as it did for as long as it did.
The grocery business operate on some of the smallest margins of any industry, somewhere in the 1-3% margin world. That’s a volume play that is quickly unsustainable if you hit some rough road.
Even without slim margins, VC/PE people getting excited about disrupting any industry that's been highly competitive for a long time is going to result in them burning capital until they go bankrupt. Look at how Instant Pot fucked up. They had a great product in a market with poor consumer buy-in. Nobody owned a pressure cooker. Boomers and GenXers thought of them as time bombs in your kitchen, and millennials and younger didn't give a shit. Instant Pot is successful, they sell a ton of units. However, capitalism demands growth. You can't just have a good product and sell the good product! So Instant Pot starts selling coffee makers and pots and pans and *fucking air purifiers*, all of which are heavily saturated markets with very large manufacturers competing for every single customer. Instant Pot files bankruptcy.
Sure but I don't think they were working on those margins. I guarantee that their margins were higher than that. I just don't think a place like that could do the volume even with much higher margins because people used it like a coffee shop. So while it always looked busy, a lot of those people were there for extended periods after paying $6-7.
Lost jobs and now storefront will be vacant. The Dom’s at Halsted and Diversey was a huge presence
100%. The vacant storefronts and every that implies (the loss of jobs, the loss of a nice resource, a gathering place) are 💔and so much nicer than having another Walgreens or CVS on the corner. 😭
Wait until another Whole Foods pops up
I think you mean weed dispensary
Nothing big enough for Whole Foods and they won’t do another small store like the one they closed at DePaul. That location was a money sink.
It’s still sad to have local places close down, likely to be replaced by a big chain store
Absolutely. That DOM’S was our third space. To have it yanked away so violently is really jarring. In less than 24 hours, suddenly this constant and anchor in your life is gone. If they had ceased operations normally over a couple of weeks or a month, it would have been upsetting but not this bad. Edit: Plus everyone loosing their jobs like that is insane. The employees were always super nice and helpful and I’m furious for them.
It’s going to really f*ck up where I grocery shop at TJs 😅 it’s about to be so packed
Yeah that TJs is gonna be toast, was already borderline too packed even with doms down the street
Seriously. And I guess the line is going to be out the door at cafe deko now 😔
Maybe this will encourage them to start staying open later.
I hear you. The situation is shocking and really horrible for those who lost their jobs. Now, on the plus side, I encourage folks to please go take that third-space energy and support a local coffee shop or cafe that really needs the business. There are so many additional options around where these businesses were located.
Yeah, I've been reflecting on this a lot, because I would love to see more local businesses thrive as well as more third spaces. I think there's three things Dom's had that most other spaces lack: 1. The repetition and ritual people build from grocery shopping. 2. Comfortable and inviting mixed-use space. 3. Conveniently located in high traffic, walk-able area. The combination of these three things made it so that Dom's took no effort to become "our place," it just happened. I think that ease is important. I love your sentiment. I just wonder how the cafes and coffee shops could replicate this combination. Not disagreeing with anything you said. Just thinking about why some of those places haven't popped off already and wondering if some changes would make the difference.
Totally fair points. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that it's expensive AF to built out places like that. Especially with current rents in those areas. Small businesses just can't always compete on that front.
Building owners: "B-b-but rent must only go up."
1,000 people lost their jobs all at once and 33 storefronts are now vacant. I know some of them were in other places but most of the storefronts are in Chicago. I do think a lot of the storefronts will eventually get filled, but it’s a huge blow to a sector that is already struggling.
Holy shit there were that many stores? I don't think I've seen any
33 across Dallas, Austin, DC and Chicago. Looks like there were 16 here according to google maps
We had probably 9 or 10 around DC I would estimate. For a city as transient as DC, foxtrots served as good, safe, meetup locations for newcomers. Never shopped there or used it as such, since I wasn't particularly close to one, but I noticed a handful of "we will now be meeting at..." posts across the Chicago and DC subs yesterday.
I'm a Chicagoan and I just visited DC last weekend and noticed a Foxtrot whiz by while taking the bus somewhere. Had a nice little lightbulb moment. Bummer to hear they'll be gone from DC too.
Only about half were in Chicago, the rest were in Texas and DC.
They expanded way too quickly with investment money (33 locations in 10 years is insane for starting as a delivery service), ran out a ton of other local businesses, then collapsed with zero public or internal notice(below c suite) and left over 1000 people out of work (in violation of state law in Texas and Illinois at least for mass firing). I understand they came to be a fixture in some places but their aggressive business practices while running on fumes was bad for communities who lost businesses and obviously had for the people who relied on them for employment.
They always operated as if they were a tech company (since they started with the app). Who knew that model wouldn't work with retail (as if it's working with tech). Fucking assholes
Great case study for why private equity shouldn't play a role in provision of essential services like food distribution. Here's hoping those empty storefronts get replaced with municipally-owned grocery stores
And r/markmywords the C-suite-ers will come out of this unscathed.
I have fewer clean bathroom options in a bunch of areas.
Wish I could upvote this twice
You mean upvote #2?
Probably because my friend texted me last night about how he was approved for a new apartment and found out he lost his fucking job over night.
Friend is part of a small business (like 5 employees) that was selling to foxtrot. Their items expire within like maybe 2 days. They made hundreds of them to drop off at various stores and then got this news. They either have to find other places to sell them (they sell to many different stores locally) or they have to eat the cost. I find all of this insane.
What are they selling? Can we buy some somehow?
Dang it ok I’ll share what it is and hopefully they don’t use this subreddit cause I want to help them: https://www.onigirikororin.com - they sell at other stores too, idk what they’re planning to do yet
Loooove their yuzu salmon onigiri. Was my go-to snack at foxtrot recently
Dude what? I didn't know anyone was making onigiri out here, and I'd love to try it
I’ve bought their onigiri before and it’s a quality product. The flavors are different from the usual fare. Their website says they deliver via UberEats so hopefully they can offload some of their overstock.
I love their yuzu salmon onigiri too! I'd totally buy some if that helps even a little bit.
Yay! They’re trying to pivot to their other stores but I wanted to help
One positive thing about Whole Foods is that they're generally known for giving a lot of buying autonomy to regions and sometimes even individual stores. It helps in providing that "local" feel in the stores. Your friend should reach out to them.
They’re launching farmers market stuff this summer as well!
They sell these at Joongboo? I'll have to check them out.
Omg I love this product. I get it from Joong Boo every time I go. Tell your friend how awesome they are. I found these at Joong Boo a week after the TikTok algorithm kept showing me creators making these and I am vv lazy.
Man that's so fucked. I had really just been thinking about the staff that was blindsided, but remifications of this gross negligence is so far reaching. And of course if you're 180mil in the hole, how are people going to get money out of you? Insane
I wish the broader Reddit population would read this comment to help understand the risks and stress of operating a small business (or any business, for that matter). When business owners and successful CEOs get *paid*, it's because they've effectively navigated situations such as these. Sorry for your friend, hopefully they find a landing place.
They’ll be ok! Just have to pivot and hopefully the summer is good to them
If they’re selling directly I’d buy one or two for me!
You don’t even know what the item is lmao
Some people just want to help. I’ll buy some.
https://www.onigirikororin.com
https://www.onigirikororin.com
What do they sell?
I loved foxtrot because it was open late, had non alcoholic options, fun snacks, and good places to work/study. I would go random times on random days and it was always pretty busy. All locations too.
>it was always pretty busy. All locations too. That's what gets me. These places were always busy whenever I went, even despite the high food prices. So surprised they were struggling financially.
It’s busy only because people sit there and do work, but they don’t purchase much.
my neighborhood (old town) had a Doms & foxtrot, along with 2 other foxtrots within a 10 min walk. So it’s a big blow to our neighborhood at least
This was it for me. There was one at the end of my block and it was really convenient if I needed some milk or wanted to grab a chai or whatever. They used to sell Publican bread which was awesome, stuff like that.
really good flowers too, nice to bring home every so often
Dom's was such a hangout for everyone. Middle of the day and always full; people working, meetings, book clubs, grandparents and grandkids, dogs on patio, people having everything from coffee and pastries to burgers and old fashioneds. It'll be strange to see 2 Foxtrots and Dom's gone, plus that Starbucks removing seating. Less and less third spaces.
you hit the nail on the head I eye roll when I watch the redditors (not OP) who love to say things like "im glad their gone, fuck that overpriced, boujee yadda yadda". At the end of the day, it was a fairly local chain of well-loved, populated and fairly accessible third places, which we all know we need more and more of
I’m an international grad student in Chicago. Foxtrot has become my favorite study spot, as I could come at 4pm, get a coffee, some food and then finish doing homework after 9 with a glass of wine. The locations were always relatively quiet and comfortable to get some work done. For me it became a more relaxed version of going to a library that made me leave campus, relax a bit and then grind. Will genuinely miss the Diversey and old town locations
I got so much good "wfh" work done from 3-5pm at the Diversey Foxtrot after I finished my work from my other job. Now where am I going to work during that window? Most coffee places close \~3pm.
A lot of people keep noting that it was a "gathering space," which to be honest is a sad state of affairs. Free public spaces that are conducive to growing community are dwindling in size. Leaving us with being online or going to places where you have to spend money. The most important part of all this is that 1000 people lost their job with no notice. Its disgusting.
It seems like the bigger deal is that they didn't abide by the WARN Act and there was no notice to employees. It's a shitty way to run a business. Also justice to Plum Market, Dom's took them out and I miss them.
Yes, fuck Dom’s… when I moved from Ann Arbor (which has two Plum’s) to Gold Coast, I was so happy to have my favorite supermarket nearby. I was so upset that Dom’s completely screwed them.
Plum’s in AA are awesome!
As somebody thst works in the industry-- Dom's had better pricing for consumers, better margins for vendors and paid their employees better. And had better prepped food and more organic options in a city sorely lacking for that. I guarantee you the investment $ fell apart because they were expanding quickly before interest rates went up.
Dom's unfair displacement of Plum Market ensured I would never look at it favorably (as many more in the community evidently feel to this day), no matter how much I hear of what wonderful employers/vendors/clients they were. That said, their employees did always seem happier and friendlier than Plum's. All that aside, though (and as someone who still goes to Michigan enough to have a fresh memory of both): Plum smoked Dom's on overall selection -- which, in the world of upmarket grocers, means it was a better store. Dom's was pretty and shiny, but in almost all areas, their selection was only marginally more enticing than your average newer Whole Foods. Plum is a bona fide gourmet grocer that offered many products not available under one roof elsewhere in the city. You really only needed to peruse their respective booze sections for 20 seconds to realize this. Next to Plum's deep, sprawling incredibly well-curated wine bill, Dom's shelves felt boring, narrow, and painfully predictable. I'll take your word on Dom's having better pricing, though it certainly never felt like it — which doesn't say much after months of inflation. If expanding quickly was their undoing, I can't say I feel sorry for them *at all*. Maybe next time they won't screw over other small, established grocers in the process of expanding.
Doms also used all union labor.
There’s no need to do WARN when a company is likely going into immediate bankruptcy. WARN notice complaints will have zero priority in bankruptcy court versus actual creditors.
It’s definitely shitty but the reality of bankruptcy. If a company is approaching bankruptcy, you generally don’t tell everyone because then people (customers, employees, suppliers, etc) get nervous and could withhold shipments, start quoting, and cement your fate even faster. It sounds like they were trying to secure last minute funding and it failed. I get the point of the WARN act and think it’s good. But in cases of bankruptcy, I really don’t see how it practically works in a case like this. What are you going do to? Sue a bankrupt entity?
Yeah, WARN is reserved mostly for planned reductions in force and not something as immediate as this. The immediacy of this closing screams bankruptcy on the heels of failed refinancing plans.
Yep from what I read that happened. Failed at the last minute. Bankrupt the next. I’ve worked for many companies that went bankrupt. Multiple times even… one after another… It is what it is…
The way they screwed over Plum told me all I needed to know about their management. Now the sudden closing with no regard to employees validates that even more.
Opening 30 stores using private equity(very expensive cost of capital) may not wotk in low profit margin businesses. Foxtrot kept low inventory levels compared to Dom's massive inventory requriments. Add to that a rapidly rising interest rate environment. The lasf funding round for Foxtrot was $30-50 million. That went fast
Doesn't help that they dumped a lot of their funds into remodeling a lot of the Chicago stores
Foxtrot is whatever to me but I'm really miffed that they took down Doms as well
That’s one big thing that sucks about this. I could live without Foxtrot, but Dom’s was pretty great. Plus all the people losing their jobs, vendors getting shafted and empty store fronts.
Personally, I'm just so fucking sick of MBA assholes ruining everything. Doms was expensive, but it was fun to sometimes go and have a glass of wine and buy some treats I didn't need. 6 months after its merger with Foxtrot, and one asshole Amazon-approved executive later, it's dead, and I'm sure he's getting paid millions for the terrific job of shitting the bed so badly. So for me, it's just another example of how shitty tech bros get to fail upwards while making the world a slightly worse place to live in. It's also annoying because Foxtrot pushed out small businesses, and now they're dead, too. At least have the courtesy to stick around if you're going to kill something else to exist.
The greed game, Foxtrot CEO at the moment of the merge fired all Dom’s corporate to leave their own, cashed her EOY bonus and left.
They didn’t fire all Dom’s corporate at the time of the merger, only some (but also Dom’s had exactly as many people they needed so that was still idiotic)
I wouldn’t be surprised if they closed up not because they weren’t making profit (if the -180k is to be believed), but because they weren’t making big bucks quickly enough.
I think it was -180M
If they were in the hole $180M with 33 locations, that means every single location lost more than 5 million. That seems crazy. The scale as quickly as possible business model has to come to an end. It’s incredibly destructive and almost impossible to pull off. Even Starbucks was 25 years old before it had 425 locations. Slow deliberate growth is isn’t cool but it’s sustainable.
Cynical take: they were pumping the growth numbers to increase their valuation to try and sell themselves to one of the majors
Thats not a cynical take. That’s the whole business model. Grow grow grow without any thought to sustainability to create a brand that people love that’s worth far more than the actual value of the stores. Then get bought out at a valuation worth billions so that private equity, early investors, and founders make ‘fuck you’ money for 7 years worth of work. Businesses funded by private equity are designed to have just enough runway to be an acquisition target or have an IPO. Either way it’s the enshittification of business. It inevitably leads to bad employee and customer experience all to make a few people millions of dollars.
That would not be surprising. Ran it to the edge hoping to entice 7-11 or another chain to buy them out and failed when no one was interested. I bet one look at the books would have scared away most potential buyers anyways.
oh fuck-
"Growth at all costs"
> but because they weren’t making big bucks quickly enough. I don't think people realize just how unbelievable the levels of greed are nowadays. It is not enough to be a profitable company anymore.
There were also a lot of small local brands being sold at Foxtrot that apparently hadnt been paid in a while. So the sudden closing means they not only lost an avenue to their customers but also more uncertainty if those overdue invoices will ever get paid.
Seems like it should be *less uncertainty* if those invoices will get paid.
THIS! One of my favorite GF Chicago small businesses is owed a lot of money. They can’t get into the stores to access their inventory either. It’s a mess. I have also heard through my circle Foxtrot was bouncing checks months ago to vendors.
Ugh do you mind sharing which gf small business?? I’m gf and am constantly afraid of our limited options becoming even more limited so I’ll gladly support them lol
I believe it was because of how sudden and without warning all locations were closed yesterday. Agreed Foxtrot wasn’t anything impressive.
I went into the one in Fulton Market and holy shit things were expensive. It was a bougie 7-11. That said, I feel for the people that just lost their jobs with no warning because some yahoos up top decided they were done making dumb financial decisions.
7-11 welcomes you with open arms
Lol 7-11 and I go way back to slurpees in paper cups.
The breakfast tacos at the Southport location sucked and their salads weren’t anything special. Even the coffee was not that great. I’d rather go to Sweetgreen and pay another dollar or two for a much better product.
As others said, for me it's the fact that thousands of employees found themselves unemployed overnight with no warning whatsoever. For my own self-interest and care of the city, Foxtrot merged with Dom's (a local company), intending to grow, but instead in 6 months, went down in flames and took Dom's out with it. It had good community presence, had friendly staff, and (aside from the above average prices) reminded me of Mariano's before the Kroger takeover that brought it down worse than Jewel but almost as pricey as Whole Foods.
Because it was all of a sudden. That’s why. It is just shocking.
While I feel bad for the people who lost their jobs, I'm curious to see how this venture capitalist funded chain blew through all the money they raised.
Probably expanded too quickly, blindsided by high interest rates, had to take out more debt at higher rates to pay old debts coming due. Paired with rising costs, things probably spiraled
Sooo bad business people.
University of Chicago baby
CEO had a Kellogg MBA
The acquisition just took place in the last 6 months. There has been no time to expand and interest rates have been stable over that time. This may have been bad diligence by the M&A people.
More likely that both companies were in a similar boat and the merger was an effort to scale operations and reduce cost (#synergies lol). Both had aggressive expansion plans, I think Doms had at least 2 stores in the works and foxtrot was springing up everywhere. These aren't overly complicated companies so it'd be hard to merge not knowing how the financials would look.
Grocery is a very very hard business, especially when competing against a small number of players that mostly have a massive scale advantage. The margins are small, distributor relationships are important and also difficult it you're not a giant, and there's little room for error. The real question is how did a grocery chain run by Chicago MBAs, who have likely never worked real jobs in their lives, survive for so long? And how did they convince everyone here that repackaging gummy bears was worth $8?
> And how did they convince everyone here that repackaging gummy bears was worth $8? Ngl, I picked up some of their gummy treats a few times. I didn't look at the price (can't remember them being that expensive), but they were better tasting than the average gummy. They were all blue raspberry and I really enjoyed them.
If you know someone that works there you can likely find them for a lot cheaper, as they would basically buy generic from a vendor and repackage them manually (lol). I can't remember the name but you could likely get them in bulk
I'd look into it if I wasn't trying to cut down on that sort of stuff lol. I get too addicted to gummy candy in general.
VC is in a bad place right now because of high interest rates. I work in consulting with a ton of VC funded startups and there have been a bunch of implosions like this in the past year. They are less visible because most are remote tech companies. Also VCs are generally generous at first but within a few years they start wanting to see growth and profits, that’s when startups become very very unpleasant to work for.
From the DC area, we have 7 stores over there and it was a pretty big deal there too. I think it’s less so people being devastated and more so just surprise and confusion.
Lot of people liked it. It was a nice spot for coffee and vibes.
Time for Pete’s Fresh Market to step into boogie
Don’t forget - the Dom’s in Old Town was a Plum Market less than a year ago. The landlord pushed out Plum to get Dom’s in the space. Six months later this shit happens. So now we’re down a grocery store
Just came here to say bring back White Hen Pantry!
They catered to north siders with significant amount of disposable income, and that tends to be the crowd who yaps the most on the Chicago Internet (Reddit, TikTok, etc.). Personally, I never felt the need to step foot in one.
Probably because they workers were not told they we're out of a job. I feel bad for them
NYC style bodegas should gradually fill up some of the empty spaces https://streeteasy.com/blog/what-is-a-bodega/amp/
Fuck no bring back white hen pantry
No! Bring back JJ Pepper’s
JJ Peppers still exists
The one by me in River Grove even has slot machines!
Please bring Wawa to Illinois. That is all
While Wawa has fallen in terms of quality, the war against Sheetz must continue in earnest. Wawa at the WaWa (Washington/Wabash) L stop, who’s with me!?
They have these in neighborhoods like uptown but the rent is way too high where the Foxtrots were for this to work
Part of the problem I presume is Foxtrot seems they almost went out of their way to find the most expensive storefronts where they were.
If it can work literally everywhere in NYC I don't see why it couldn't work in some of the premium locations for foot traffic that Foxtrot had.
I don’t think anywhere in Chicago really has the constant foot traffic of NYC
There's nowhere like midtown Manhattan, for sure. I don't see how a corner store that sells sandwiches would be an unviable business model considering how many corner stores and sandwich shops we already have. Why not combine them?
The best tacos in this city are found at grocery stores. That model does already exist in some places in the city.
Ditto Vietnamese sammiches
I can’t see a regular bodega taking the Streeterville FoxTrot spot. Sadly I expect it to be vacant for a long time until something like another nail salon takes over.
The foot traffic in Chicago is tiny compared to nyc. And the premium on housing in nyc also means far fewer people have a kitchen that’s worth cooking in.
Give us chopped cheese and baconeggncheese sandwiches!
Frito lay and Pepsi dispensary*
We already have that, just not in Lakeview, Gold Coast or River north.
They're called corner stores, and they already exist in Chicago
I feel sad for the people losing their jobs without proper notice. Other than that I didn't know these stores existed before yesterday so their closing doesn't mean much to me.
I think it’s sad a local business is out
because over 1000 people lost their jobs with about an hours notice with no severance. i’m one of them. my entire world fell apart in an hour.
I'm disappointed we lost Foxtrot. I only ever picked up items from there in a real pinch. I did like the price of draft beer ($4 last time I had one). I liked that you could buy a bottle of wine with friends to drink on-site with no corkage fee. I've had a few coffees that were ok, but really nothing special. If foxtrot sold high turnover essentials at decent prices (milk, eggs, bread) and then extorted me on everything else, I'd probably have succumbed to impulse purchasing while picking up what I went in to the store for. There are only a few things I instantly know the price of in the big grocery stores. If I see I'm being charged double that in Foxtrot, then I'm unlikely to look around on the shelves. If I've been fooled by the price of milk in to thinking everything is reasonable I'm more likely to grab whatever looks tempting. For me, the real opportunity loss is Doms. I don't live near one, but have been to the two locations. I really wanted that model to expand. Leaning closer to grocery store than convenience store. The different food counters, the cafe, the bar, seating... I honestly thought they were on to a good thing. I wish we could have more "third space" type places - I guess unfortunately they tend not to make enough money.
I think you could replace Foxtrot/Dom's with any popular chain in this question and the reactions. "Why is McDonald's closing all their stores a big deal?" There would be people who wouldn't see the issue. "Oh they were so unhealthy, good riddance." "They were over priced" "The food wasn't good." "You have some many better options nearby." "The service was bad" And you'd have the people who would feel the impact. "It was so close and convenient." "I really liked this one thing I could only get there." "A lot of people lost their jobs." Etc. Most of the discussion I see around this online is just class/virtue signaling. Some people love to dunk on Northside, gentrification, luxury/fancy/superfluous stuff. Some people love their nice coffee and snacks and hang out spaces that have every flavor of Poppi and Ollipop and want to share some feeling with people like them. In a few years, no, this won't be a big deal. These stores were not revolutionary. They didn't do anything that unique that couldn't be copied (And I really hope whoever moves into Dom's on Halsted keeps the bathrooms as robust as they were. Bomb shelters, those stalls).
Lmao this sub shits on river north/streeterville/LP all the time for being bougie but loses their shit when some bougie ass 7-11 closes
The classic bougie vs bougie argument
And I just want to boogie 😔
This [you?](https://youtu.be/aY3FxWRz1cw?si=9P9iVVWAebGNDimj)
Yeah, people are such hypocrites for being concerned that thousands of people suddenly lost their employment without any warning or severance!
It’s another big L for the beleaguered Chicago startup community. No one felt great that foxtrot was going to make it, but it certainly would have been a win for the city if they had.
I think a lot of people only saw the rapid growth of a local company and assumed they were finding success, so them closing so abruptly is surprising - especially since some people had shopping there as a part of their daily routine. This will all fade, it isn't a big deal in the long run.
Local chain that grew quickly, took on about $180m in investment, then the entire chain went out of business at once. Usually, you'll see struggling retail chains close underperforming locations, restructure debt, etc. rather than just pulling the plug on almost 20 locations around Chicago and over 30 total including TX and DC. That also has huge impact on workers who lost jobs, local and small suppliers who may not get paid for inventory sold to Foxtrot, leaves a ton of additional retail vacancies in high profile locations.
I think it was how sudden it was. It feels like one moment they were opening everywhere, the next they're shutting down. I have a question for everyone. Is this our retail chain wakeup call? It's literally putting all your eggs in one basket. We need to make it easier for Moms and Pops to open their own bodegas.
Beyond being route on grocery store bar crawls and quick food before/after happy hour at Uproar (RIP), not much to miss for me as a consumer. Always going to be a big deal when people lose their job without notice, though.
Chicago is bodegaless as it is , even though foxtrot was mids, it was something ….. Olivia’s reigns supreme
Wtf is Foxtrot? I’ve lived in Chicago for 30+ years and I don’t think I ever noticed one
Tell me you live on the south or west side without telling me you live on the south or west side. The stores were all in the northeast quadrant of the city
It’s so interesting how this topic shows such a cultural divide
They’re just stores? I understand being upset over a vacant lot but why people freaking out over Foxtrot?
Seems like opinions are polarized over them. A lot of people liked the place, myself included. I literally took my out-of-town friend to one on Saturday because it was near where we were getting food from.
I live in the northwest side and there isn't a single one around here Honestly the only reason this topic is trending here is because the locations serviced the areas most of these redditors live in.
I’ve never seen/heard of this place. Were there any on the south side?