Classy action - how to run a business

Into the ground... A local restaurant chain looks at the numbers and decides to declare bankruptcy and close its stores. Last Sunday. While customers were still eating. From Seattle station KOMO:

Customers kicked out as Marie Callender's shuts down
The restaurant best known for serving warm pies to loyal customers has stunned some with a move they see as flat-out cold.

Three Marie Callender's restaurants across Washington shut down abruptly this weekend, leaving more than 100 people without jobs. Witnesses say some customers were in the middle of meals on Sunday afternoon when they were told to get up and leave the restaurant.

"I thought it was a big joke, because I was like, 'I still have people in the restaurant,' and they were like, 'they need to leave,'" said Mapp Chhim, who up until Sunday served as a manager at the Northgate Marie Callender's location.

"There was a party of 25 in the back room. It was somebody's birthday party, and I feel so bad that we like ruined the celebration."

Chhim said about 50 people worked at the Northgate location, in addition to about 50 employees in Federal Way and several dozen more in Spokane. Together, the restaurant's closing leaves more than 100 people without a job in Washington state.

"Some of them have two kids and somehow they have to find alternative income to keep living. It's a big shock," he added. "I love working here. I love the people I work with."

Reached Sunday evening, corporate spokeswoman Vivian Brooks confirmed the restaurants' closings but wouldn't say why the decision was made so abruptly.

With upper management that tone deaf and clueless, it is no wonder that the place went belly up. This business has been around for seventy years. Current ownership is by Perkins & Marie Callender's Inc. formed through a merger back in 2006. It only took them five years to gut the brand and shut it down. Talk about a classic CDSM