Foxtrot, Dom’s Kitchen & Market Facing Class Action Lawsuit After Abrupt Closure Amid Reported Bankruptcy

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Foxtrot Retail and Dom’s Market, LLC face a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges neither company provided enough advance notice to workers terminated immediately when their 30 locations abruptly and permanently closed on April 23, 2024.

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The 12-page class action lawsuit accuses Foxtrot, Dom’s Kitchen & Market and parent company Outfox Hospitality of violating the federal Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification (WARN) Act and the Illinois WARN Act by failing to provide laid-off workers at least 60 days’ advance notice prior to their terminations.

Foxtrot and Dom’s have run stores, markets and coffee shops in the Chicagoland area for the last five years, the suit shares. At all relevant times, the companies employed 100 or more people and/or had 100 or more employees who worked in aggregate at least 4,000 hours per week, exclusive of overtime, the filing notes.

“Defendants failed to pay the Named Plaintiff and each member of the WARN class their respective wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay, accrued vacation pay, and/or accrued PTO for 60 days following their respective terminations.”

On April 23, Foxtrot stated on its Instagram page that “we regret to announce” that Foxtrot and Dom’s would be closing as of that date, affecting 33 Foxtrots and 2 Dom’s grocery stores across Austin, Dallas, Chicago and Washington, D.C., the case relays.

According to the lawsuit, neither Foxtrot nor Dom’s employees were given notice of their terminations prior to April 23, and several workers, including the plaintiff, first learned of the mass layoff in the middle of a work shift on that day, the suit shares.

In addition to 60 days’ advance notice, proposed class members have also been deprived of compensation owed to them during the 60-day notice period afforded by the WARN Act and Illinois WARN Act, the filing claims.

According to Eater Chicago, corporate workers for Foxtrot and Dom’s were told Tuesday morning via conference call that the stores would be closing by noon that day. Workers were “left in the dark and instructed not to talk to customers about the matter,” Eater wrote. 

Eater reports that although Dom's made no mention of bankruptcy in its announcement about the closings, there were murmurings that the company "didn't make its routine purchase orders" last week, and that several staples items were missing from its Old Town location last week. It was also reported that several Outfox C-suite members "began jumping ship last week," Eater shared.

The Foxtrot and Dom’s class action lawsuit looks to cover all employees who worked at the defendants’ retail stores and were terminated on April 23, 2024, or were terminated as the reasonably foreseeable consequence of the “plant closing and/or mass layoffs” by the companies on or about April 23, 2024, who are affected employees pursuant to the WARN Act and who did not receive at least 60 days’ notice prior to the closings.

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