Tucson fast-food Eegee's has new owner after emerging from bankruptcy

Six months after filing bankruptcy, Tucson’s iconic fast-food chain Eegee’s has a new owner.

Eegee Acquisition Corp., a subsidiary of the McLean, Virginia-based Gladstone Capital, acquired the Tucson-born chain of 25 restaurants — 20 in Tucson, one in Casa Grande and four in the Phoenix area — in late April after the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Eegee’s former owner Eegee’s LLC, a subsidiary of New York-based 39 North Capital, filed bankruptcy last December, listing nearly $2.8 million in outstanding debt owed to 20 creditors including Tucson-based Merit Foods.

As one of 39 North Capital’s lenders, Gladstone took over Eegee’s when the private equity firm defaulted, opening the door for Gladstone to buy the company through the bankruptcy process, said CEO Chris Westcott.

Eegee Acquisition Corp. is still finalizing details on creditor settlements, which Westcott said could take 90 to 120 days.

“But for all intents and purposes, the case is on its way to being finalized,” he said.

The December bankruptcy filing came a day after Eegee’s shuttered four Tucson restaurants and one in Phoenix.

Westcott said he doesn’t anticipate any additional restaurant closures.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“We had the opportunity to evaluate all locations and this is the 25 that we feel are stable and we’re going to go forward with,” he said.

“The goal right now is to kind of break free of the whole bankruptcy process because when you say going bankrupt, people think you’re going to disappear,” he added. “The residents of Tucson need to be assured that Eegee’s is a fixture and is going to remain a fixture, and we will continue to do what we do.”

Westcott, who was brought in to run the company two weeks before the bankruptcy, said Eegee’s plans to make some menu changes including introducing a line of hot soups and toasted sandwiches in the fall and innovating the kids’ menu.

“Our kids menu has been fairly simplistic,” he said. “We’re investing quite a bit of energy into the kids experience.”

Westcott said that while the chain’s parent company is located in the Washington, D.C., area, “we are a local company.”

“We sit here on East Broadway Boulevard in our offices. Our 550 employees are residents of the communities that they work in,” he said. “Where the ownership is is not really related to how we think of the company. The brand is local and will continue to be local.”

Eegee’s has been a Tucson institution since founders Edmund Irving and Bob Greenberg started selling frozen lemon drinks from a lemonade truck near area high schools, sporting events and concerts in 1971 before opening its first brick-and-mortar in spring 1972.

At its height in 2022, the company operated 35 locations.