💥New Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing - Food52 Inc.💥

Pre-petition secured lender sweeps cash, forcing a chapter 11 filing.

Source: Getty Images. A Food52 branded cookbook.

On December 29, 2025, Brooklyn-based Food52 Inc. (the “debtor” or the “company”) filed a chapter 11 bankruptcy case in the District of Delaware (Judge Silverstein), no doubt ruining Christmas for the poor saps over at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP (“YCST”)(Michael Nestor, Kara Hammond Coyle, Elizabeth Justison, S. Alexander Faris, Andrew Lee, Brynna Gaffney). But at least they’ll get paid. Well, maybe, 🤷‍♀️. But, f*cked up Christmas notwithstanding, we reckon they’ll be alright. It turns out that there are several other characters in this story you ought to reserve your pity for.

Like CEO Erika Bada$$ Badan. We’ve never seen a first day dec paragraph drip with regret like this one:

“Prior to joining the Company, I served as the first Chief Executive Officer of Barstool Sports from 2016 until January 2024. This was a period of explosive and unprecedented growth for the company. During this time, Barstool Sports grew from a regional blog to a national media and cultural powerhouse. Barstool Sports launched over 90 brands during my tenure and the company’s revenue grew over 5000% in an eight-year period. In 2023, we sold Barstool Sports to Penn Entertainment for $550 million. This was an intense, challenging, and entertaining chapter in my career which led me to write a business book and receive a myriad of recognitions, including Fast Company’s Most Creative Women in Business and Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in U.S. Sports. Prior to joining Barstool Sports, I served as the Chief Marketing Officer of AOL, and held leadership roles at Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Demand Media. I currently serve on the boards of AXON Enterprise (AXON), Vice Media, and the Premiere Lacrosse League.”

You impressed? You should be. We are. This woman had to put up with Dave Portnoy and a gigatonne of toxic masculinity for literally years, and nevertheless managed to secure a solid financial exit for that business anyway. After that “intense, challenging and entertaining chapter,” we reckon she figured she’d take on a decidedly less stressful venture in the world of cooking and food-based e-commerce — only to end up contending with the f*cking a$$holes over at Avidbank Holdings Inc. ($AVBH)(“Avid”) and ending up in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

And The Chernin Group (“TCG”). Yes, that’s right, we’re even suggesting that we should pity a private equity firm. TCG acquired a majority stake in the now-debtor back in ‘19 for $83mm in a deal that valued the company at more than $100mm on $30mm of revenue and zero profit (lol). TCG subsequently sank $100mm in additional funding into the biz, the use of proceeds being development of private label products and (ill-fated) acquisitions of home goods brands Schoolhouse and Dansk Designs.

Fine. Maybe not TCG. It turns out that TCG’s unmitigated desire for growth — especially after the company’s massive boom during the pandemic — left no room for PE-esque operational enhancements. Among many issues cited by Ms. Badan that led to the debtor’s demise, she cites the fact that Food52, Schoolhouse and Dansk Designs all continued to operate separately as three distinct brands and businesses (no synergies, c’mon!!) and the debtor was “…burdened by high fixed operational costs, unfavorable legacy contracts, outdated technology, and lack of scalable systems.” It seems she spent a tremendous amount of time contending with these issues, effectively coming in as a turnaround CEO from the word “go.” Sh*t was so bad that she felt the need to reiterate:

“Our mission was to put the Company on a path to profitability by late 2025 or early 2026, and the Company was making steady progress towards that goal, despite a host of external and internal challenges including tariffs, changes in warehousing and fulfillment partners, significant overhead costs, legacy technology and finance issues, burdensome contracts, challenges with alignment in culture and brands, and a limited amount of time and resources to do so.”

Bad tech and bad contracts … ok, got it.

Enter some advisors — some of which we should also feel sorry for. Powered by an incremental equity investment by TCG, the company embarked on a sale process this past summer. Core Advisors LLC (“Core”)(Blake Saunders) came on as ibanker to pursue strategic interest while Buchbinder & Co. LLC (“Buchbinder”) came on to attract special situations investors. Per Ms. Badan, “The goal was to find a home for these great brands and their talented and creative employees, ideally by buyers who would value their heritage and unique potential.” The papers don’t explicitly say this but we gather that Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (“Willkie”) was also in the mix at this point advising the company.

Things, as recently as just a few weeks ago, appeared to be heading in the right direction: the company received seven indications of interest by mid-December and all signs pointed towards some kind of transaction that would generate sufficient proceeds to pay off the $6.3mm owed to Avid by early ‘26. Contemporaneously, Ms. Badan and her team were “…engaged in herculean efforts to drive holiday sales over the Thanksgiving holiday and subsequent Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend to ensure it would have funding to support the duration of its promising sale process,” providing Avid with weekly updates in the process. “On Friday, December 12, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. (ET), the Company had what appeared to be, by any objective observer, a productive meeting with Avid, who acknowledged the progress being made and strategy around next steps to maximize value with the different bidders.”

It appears that Avid was not an objective observer. Three days later, with no warning to the company, Avid swept the debtor’s cash (satisfying all but $411k of its exposure) — leaving employees high and dry and necessitating a $1,505,000 secured bridge loan from TCG just to ensure that taxes were paid (and to bridge to this filing).*

This gets us to the next group of we should all feel sorry for: employees. Per Ms. Badan:

“Avid’s actions had significant and far-reaching consequences, necessitating the immediate termination of the majority of the Debtor’s employees during the holidays with no notice, while asking the Debtor’s few remaining employees to work around the clock to keep the Company in business. The Debtor went from operating in the ordinary course with six IOIs in hand and a capital commitment from TCG on December 12, 2025, to a $0 account balance at Avid and lack of clarity on the remaining committed capital by December 15, 2025.”

Source: PETITION Meme Department

Among those suddenly unjobbed by Avid’s actions is Buchbinder (no longer in the mix) and Willkie (now a top unsecured creditor, 😬).

The company needed a Christmas miracle.

Perhaps it found one.

In the immediate aftermath of Avid’s actions, Core worked the phones and one of the parties that’d originally submitted an IOI — America’s Test Kitchen, LP (owned by Marquee Brands LLC) — engaged with an actionable proposal through its wholly-owned sub F52 LLC. Recall that the company was reportedly valued at $100mm at the time of the TCG transaction and juxtapose that against F52 LLC’s offer of $6.5mm (plus certain assumed liabilities),** which subsumes a $3.42mm DIP (to be credit bid, $1.92mm interim, $411k of which will take out Avid).*** YCST dove into this dumpster fire on December 22, 2025. Repeat: December 22, 2025.****

Source: GIPHY

Well, sh*t, we don’t even need gifs: Ms. Badan’s words candidly capture this would-be 35-day sale:

“This was an ugly process and a consuming, painful period for the Company and its employees. It was not a position the Company expected to find itself in given the robust sale process it was in the midst of pursuing. Being blunt, the process proposed to be consummated through this chapter 11 case is far from perfect, but is the only path forward that maximizes value for the Debtor’s constituents and preserves the Debtor’s business as a going concern given the situation Avid has put the Debtor in. Absent F52’s agreement to provide the DIP Financing and willingness to enter into the transaction reflected in the Stalking Horse Agreement—which the Debtor and F52 have worked around the clock to negotiate and document over the past week amid the holidays—the Debtor already would have filed for chapter 7 (or an alternative liquidation proceeding), to the detriment of all constituencies.”

Like we said. Dripping. With. Regret.

A motion to shorten notice in connection with bid procedures is already on the docket (to be heard on January 12, 2026). We’re going to assume that the debtor’s proposed timeline will hold because it literally cannot afford it not to.

The New Years Eve day first day hearing was uneventful — a nice break from what sounds like a hellish stretch leading up to it. A second day hearing is scheduled for January 22, 2026 at 10:30am.

The debtor’s professionals are all noted above (or in the footnotes below). F52 LLC is represented by Moore & Van Allen PLLC (James Langdon) and Chipman Brown Cicero & Cole LLP (William Chipman).

*Behind the secured debt sits a $15mm unsecured term loan owed to Silicon Valley Bank and approximately $8.3mm in trade debt.

**Across the three businesses, Ms. Badan noted that revenue was ~$53.2mm in ‘24.

***The DIP interest rate is 15% PIK. There’s a 6% exit fee that will only apply if F52 LLC isn’t approved as the stalking horse purchaser. TCG has consensually agreed to priming.

****The debtor’s financial advisor, Meru LLC, came on board merely four days before that.

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Company Professionals:

• Legal: Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP (Michael Nestor, Kara Hammond Coyle, Elizabeth Justison, S. Alexander Faris, Andrew Lee, Brynna Gaffney)

• Independent Director: Jill Frizzley

• Financial Advisor: Meru LLC (Laura Marcero)

• Investment Banker: Core Advisors LLC (Blake Saunders)

• Claims Agent: Verita (Click here for free docket access)

Other Parties in Interest:

• DIP Lender: Marquee Brands LLC

  • Legal: Moore & Van Allen PLLC (James Langdon) and Chipman Brown Cicero & Cole LLP (William Chipman)

• Prepetition Secured Creditor & Material Shareholder: The Chernin Group

• Prepetition Secured Creditor: Avidbank