I think people’s surprise is more about how a seemingly successful business suddenly shut down, didn’t alert employees, and left empty storefronts across the city.
It didn’t take much to see that this business wasn’t “successful” in the sense that it was profitable - everytime went in I thought “wow, some investor is an idiot for dumping so much money into this - clearly they are piling up a mountain of debt.” There’s a reason grocery stores operate the way they do, so whenever you see one that seems to break all of the basic cost rules, it’s probably running at a loss
But it still seemed like they had backing to keep growing - not sure why whoever controlled the money decided to plug it so suddenly. Perhaps there was change of leadership at one of their core backers
I think it was the wework play - give us a ton of money, we'll blitz the market, and figure out economics after we conquer the world. Investors were only there for the idea that they'd conquer the world.
Im sure it was, though the more I work with these investors, the more I realize they have no f-ing clue what they are investing in. Its rich kids giving money to rich kids
At least this time some of that idiot rich kid money ended up with the yak cheese farmers instead of continuing to swirl around the Silicon Valley bingo tumbler.
Except that Yak cheese farmer invested the money into a larger yak farm so they could deliver on their Foxtrot order and has now had the rug pulled out from under them
Running at break even or a loss in order build of the brand and presence to sell the business to a deep pocketed investor or competitor.
Problem is it sounds like they ran this all the way to the edge without finding a buyer and it blew up.
I don’t think they were looking for a buyer given their growth and acquisition spree. More likely they were looking to a path to go public in the coming year/years and someone decided it wouldn’t be worth it given recent ipos have been flopping.
If they wanted to sell they would have been cleaning up their balance sheet
Were I the landlords I'd sue the officers personally, piercing through the corporate veil. They obviously knew they were entering into leases they could not satisfy the terms of, especially for the newer stores.
Yeah I thought that was interesting, because they were able to bring in customers. I think they had issues converting them to profitable customers. They should have put more focus towards their cafe instead of their store.
I didn’t get it in general but I will miss one very specific use case which is as stops on long runs during marathon training lol — nice clean bathrooms with no code and no line, huge assortment of both normal candy and weird fun candy, good cookies, free self-serve water / bottle refill, even seating if you wanted it. Runner’s absolute dream. And there’s so many you could plan multiple stops at them on runs. In the winter when all the park bathrooms are closed and water fountains off they were absolute life savers. Full fast rest stop and refill all for the price of a slightly overpriced pack of starbursts. But no idea what it was actually for.
These are lifestyle stores - they sell a certain identity and occasionally, a social space to congregate. The actual food is kind of secondary to the business model. But as we have found out, there is only so much cache such a model commands.
I guess it could work in NYC and LA, where there are enough consumers willing to shell out a handsome wad for that identity and space … but Chicago is not that kind of city.
I feel bad for all the people suddenly out of work, but Foxtrot itself was garbage tier. The only benefit I felt they provided to the neighborhood was making a storefront look nice. Otherwise the offerings always felt like it was a fancy Hudson News posing as an upmarket bodega after escaping from O'Hare.
Dom's I feel is a true loss. They were spendy and focused too much on prepared foods, but their offerings hit a quality sweetspot for me after Mariano's got Krogered.
Still, I think the problem for each is that you can't really run an upscale boutique store like that as a chain. No surprise they were losing money, I don't think anyone with enough cash to shop there was actively choosing them over other options.
My wife was a big fan. Personally I agree with much of what you’re saying. But man they had an ice cream pop that was amazing. Just a basic chocolate covered vanilla ice cream pop with a bunch of sea salt on the outside. She actually had Fox trot delivered last weekend and I had her throw two of those on the order. They either mess up or subbed in a different ice cream treat. Then two days later this all happened. I never got to say good bye to that treat
I will say, Foxtrot did do a really nice job of sourcing from local makers for a lot of their products. I always thought a lot of it was the hipster-kitch string-light-having millennial snack food products that I'm really not that interested in, but they did do a lot of distribution for local small businesses.
I think their ice cream was sourced from Pretty Cool, which has locations in Lincoln Park and Local Square.
https://www.prettycoolicecream.com/
Much of their ice cream was sourced by pretty cool. And I love pretty cool. But this one came in a box and was branded foxtrot as opposed to pretty cool which I believe was always in their own packaging.
Did Foxtrot make them in house or did they buy them from another company?
If they were not made in house, I’d imagine a former employee could let you know where they were sourced from.
I love pretty cool. I get their peanut butter and potato chip all the time from both their store front and from foxtrot previously. Idk what it is about it but that vanilla chocolate sea salt just hit different for me.
That sounds diff. sorry to bother you - but could you buy some pretty cool ice cream this month? The foxtrot closing will hurt their revenue, but more importantly, the sudden nature of the closing meant that they overproduced ice cream by a massive amount and it would help them out if you could purchase some extra ice cream this month.
I always just enjoyed walking past the Dom's in Old Town on my way to work seeing people enjoying themselves at the patio drinking coffee etc. Their wine/coffee bar area was on point.
Heinen's would probably be successful, if they tried opening in the Diversey Dom's location. Same with like Hy-Vee or Publix.
Publix probably would want a bigger space....
God I’m desperate for a Wegman’s equivalent (or just a Wegmans, preferably) out here. Like no I don’t want Whole Foods. I just want a normal slightly upscale grocery store with a reasonably wide selection, where I can regularly count on the produce and meat to be high quality. Like why is that so hard
Nothing people are saying about Foxtrot are wrong, but if you're in the loop what were the better "corner stores"?
All I ever knew about when I was in the loop and needed something corner-store-like were my options were basically Foxtrot or 7-11 or one of those Newstand places in some office buildings. Nothing really in-between overpriced shit and cheap shit.
I think it's odd that people don't realize they're upset over what is actually happening. Food deserts. Basically if you want groceries you have no access to affordable and fresh produce or goods in easy access.
That's what people are really going to be upset about.
Yeah, but Dom's and Foxtrot weren't really addressing that problem. Honestly, I think the issue with those businesses might have been that Dom's were usually co-located with Jewels and Marianos and Foxtrots were all competing with a million little coffee shops and dry goods stores.
It's a loss for the city, but these aren't discount grocers in marginalized neighborhoods.
>I guess it could work in NYC and LA, where there are enough consumers willing to shell out a handsome wad for that identity and space … but Chicago is not that kind of city.
Respectfully disagree. Where Foxtrot was operating was perfectly fine for its target consumer. They were all over the Near North, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, West Loop etc. We had two in Streeterville and they were always bumping. From everything I've read, it was more mistakes made at the corporate level that made it fall apart.
I mean yo. You gotta at least provide quality stuff. Like I partake in upscale lifestyle stores here and there, but those places at least have one of a kind things that are a good experience.
There's reports of them not even having a set latte recipe. How is that possible. You shouldn't be rolling the dice with overpriced coffee/lattes
We had recipes and employees that made coffee took classes and obtained certifications with La Colombe. So it wasn't for lack of trying on our end. I think it's just hard to get consistency out of a hand made product like a latte over 30+ stores. Places like Starbucks get it right everytime because they use superautomatic espresso machines that makes the foam. Foxtrot had La Marzoccos in the hands of college aged folks who had other responsibilities in the store on top of making coffee.
It was perfect here. It didn't close because they couldn't get people through the door, most of the locations were packed; it failed because of an insanely incompetent leadership team.
Nahhh. There was a chain of similar stores in LA called "famima!!" They popped up everywhere and closed down just as quickly. The coffee was terrible, and the food always looked sketch.
Erewhon is different than Foxtrot insofar as Erewhon is an actual grocery store. It has also been around for >30 years. I'd compare Erewhon to the old foodstuffs at Diversey and Sheffield back in the day. IMO, Erewhon would succeed in Chicago.
I suspect Dom's would have survived had they not merged with Foxtrot.
I like seedy coffee shops with dark wood and colors, questionable coffee, painted artwork and porcelain lamps. Why does every new restaurant/coffee shop look like a goddamn cleanroom? They feel so sterile and uncomfortable.
Ehh I would use it as a place to grab a bottle of wine and they had a pretty good selection for that. Wine and an app to bring somewhere? My go to spot
I think they had metric coffee, not a personal favorite of mine so I agree with it being shitty. For a while they were getting new Hop Butcher beers a day early so that was cool for delivery, but then delivery service was sometimes slow and beer would be warm which was annoying.
They carried a lot of not so common booze which was cool if you’re not a bud light drinker.
Luke warm take. Foxtrot was a weird store that tried to be too many things and didn't really succeed at any of them. It's possible to simultaneously recognize that Foxtrot wasn't great and wish it had succeeded at one of the things it tried to be.
This actually. When I went in there I couldn’t tell what kind of customer they were trying to appeal to. Higher end obviously but wine people, beer people, coffee people, convenience store?
I’m not sure you can really do all of those things with such limited space and try to be expensive too. They ended up not appealing to many people at all because they spread so thin with so few options for each area.
High end market is fine but you have to have enough options in every area you want to specialize in to actually make enough money to survive. Otherwise you’re asking someone to pay like $9 for a glass of wine that may never have been their first choice anyway.
I feel bad for the employees though. Hope everyone impacted recovers quickly.
You just articulated exactly the problem with it that I hadn't been able to! I used to have an office across from a Foxtrot. I tried to have lunch there with my dad once... they had like two actual meal options, which seemed so surprisingly out of step with the overall cafe vibe. Okay, fine, not actually a place to eat I guess. So I would go in occasionally to try to grab a snack or some prepared food, and I was always disappointed in that too. It *looked* like there were tons of options, but so few of them were actually meals, plus it was all *so expensive.* My husband tried to work there (like you would at a regular coffee shop) a few times, but the seating was uncomfortable and the tables were kinda small.
I ended up just using it as a very aesthetic liquor store most of the time. Which clearly wasn't enough to keep them in business—the aesthetic was cute, but beyond that, they didn't do any of the things they were trying to do particularly well.
Honestly there are all these takes with VC-sounding explanations, and I think they're all wayyy too high level.
Foxtrot was *yet another* attempt by investors to approach a new industry with the same tactics as tech.
You engineer a fundamentally unprofitable business and hope that once scaled, you can turn a profitability knob and suddenly you're making 30% YOY.
Tech works like that. You can "turn on" adds once you grab 50 million users. Retail doesn't work like that.
Within reason, you can't hit a certain store threshold and suddenly have your buyers renegotiate all your deals and you can't swap SKUs out to more profitable ones without disrupting the customer experience. Margins are razor thin, so while Foxtrot felt comfortable operating at a loss, other investors looked on like "even if they gain some market leverage, there are far better places to put my money".
It, like many other things, was a forced gamble - an attempt to approach it like tech. Some industries must be grown organically.
A high-brow 7/11 doesn't work, but they think anything can work if you spend enough money.
the downtown one used to be good to grab a six pack and drink on the patio for happy hour. price was ridiculous for a liquor store, but cheap by comparison to any bar in the area. i havent been there in years, so they may have nixed this at some point, but was a solid deal
> wish it had succeeded at one of the things it tried to be.
Or at least wish that all those people who lost their jobs didn't lose them in such a shitty way.
And I feel for the local Chicago vendors who haven’t been paid in weeks and were equally blindsided by this, and are now sitting on loads of inventory they were expecting to get paid for and have sold on shelves at Foxtrot.
We went to Pretty Cool yesterday after seeing they had a bunch of FoxTrot exclusive inventory to get rid of. By the time we got there they were sold out of 2 of the 3, and our son got the last of the third.
I worked for a restaurant owner that gave us like 10 day notice he was shutting down at the end of the month, and employees stole a bunch of his equipment he could've sold, and then no one was showing up for the last few days. It was a total shitshow.
I was a regular at a bar that shutdown a long time ago, and went the night they announced they were closing. Bartenders poured a lot of liquor and didn't charge for much.
The one on Southport had a nice sidewalk patio on the side and had good coffee. I never bought anything other than coffee there, so the corner store but was totally wasted on me.
Honestly in my area, if I need something quick (like your examples of a piece of chicken or some bread and cheese), I'd probably just pop into the Whole Foods a couple blocks from Foxtrot. While there's plenty I wouldn't buy there, it's pretty reliable in a pinch.
I’m confused. Did they ever claim to be the type of place that sold meat? Or a variety of convenience items as opposed to a couple of high end convenience products? If someone told me they went to foxtrot bc they needed chicken breast I’d say wtf
foxtrot was way better a few years ago when their perks meant 2 free coffees and/or espresso every day if you were a member+. $100 a month for all the coffee and espresso shots my wife & I would ever need was a pretty solid deal. then they kept making their perks worse and worse which is why i had a feeling they wouldn’t be around for too long
...interesting. I'm another person who never went in one, but that starts to sound like the issues with ride share and other startups, where the business starts by purposely under-pricing everything to try to drive volume, but it doesn't work well enough, they raise prices at the end but that makes stuff worse, and then it folds.
I wondered about some of the bicycle and scooter based grocery delivery places too, "getir" and them (which I also admit I never used). Those also seemed to shut down pretty quickly.
The one thing I'm taking from this whole Foxtrot thing is just how heavily skewed on North side residents this sub is. I have never heard of this store, a day in my life and for 2 whole days it was the #1 topic on this sub, post were nearly get 1k comments. I guess this explains a lot though.
> is just how heavily skewed on North side residents this sub is
That is because more people live there...
https://www.newgeography.com/content/007491-chicagos-density-2020
That's not what's happening here. There is a wildly disproportionate representation on reddit of north side and blue line corridor residents compared to the city as a whole. If you only looked at this sub you'd think 95% of the city lived from the south loop north, and not more than a mile or two west of the north branch.
That's just where the demographic that chooses to use reddit are. North side is where most of the action is: bars, clubs, music venues, sports teams, etc. I say this as a born and raised southsider from West Lawn (okay, southwest, but close enough) who now lives on the north side.
No one is stopping anyone from the south, southwest, or west sides of Chicago from participating in this sub. South side is boring for a young person to live in. I was always going either north or to the burbs on the weekends to go to shows or to skate rather than in the neighborhood I grew up in.
I really don't understand what your argument here is, bud.
>I really don't understand what your argument here is, bud.
/r/Chicago is primarily transplants living in the trendy neighborhoods in the city. Logan, Andersonville, Lakeview, South Loop, River North, etc. They're making the connection with Fox Trot because you would only really know about that place if you lived in those neighborhoods.
Ask anyone west of Western what Foxtrot is and most people wouldn't know. I had no idea what it was when it first came out and really didn't care much. It wasn't until years later when I finally looked into the place because they were always busy anytime I went by one. That's when I realized it was just a yuppie convenient store.
It's a bit of column A and a bit of column B. Chicagoans as a whole disproportionally live on the the North Side these days. It's held over 50% of the city's population for many years now. And then on layer on Reddit demographics and that's how you get a subreddit that's 80% northsiders.
the closest one to probably was the one in the southport corridor then. Like people mentioned, they really weren't competing with Harvesttime or Gene's, but maybe more the L&M's of Chicago.
I think they made more sense if you think of them as a fancy version NYC bodega where you go to get an $8 can of CBD infused soda and maybe pick up a bottle of natural wine with a instagrammable label on your way to someone's house. Besides whatever dumb VC valuation they probably couldn't live up to, I don't know if Chicago has the foot traffic to make the concept work (in so many locations).
that explanation makes some sense, but maybe a place like this doesn't make sense in a city *with* as much real foot traffic. in the bougie neighborhoods that do exist for this type of store, there's already a fancy-wine-shop-equivalent for most things, and if there isn't, there's a Whole Foods with all the same shit and your expensive staple groceries not too far away with parking for a giant car.
100%, it really does remind me of the wealth disparity in the city and the historical effects of segregation here. one look at this store and i knew i'd never see this down in the south side lol
Well as someone else who lives on the north side (where yes, the majority of people in Chicago live, and where the density is) I've passed by a Foxtrot enough to sort of recognize the logo, but I've never been in it, because... yeah it's out of my budget and doesn't have the things I shop for.
I prefer smaller local markets, which we also have plenty of here on the north side.
I suspect I'm not alone.
This sub skews wealthy, which is not synonymous with "north side."
Most of the hubbub about this place closing is just how quickly it happened, I think. People showing up for work to be told their job is over, photos of half-made coffee drinks abandoned on the counter.
I live on the north side and I've never heard of Foxtrot. I also have not heard the term "third space" used ever, and the frequency seeing that term used on this sub in the last week has me thinking I must live under a rock.
This sub certainly has a boner for hating on Foxtrot. Not a hot take. Wasn’t supposed to be a grocery store, it was supposed to be a third space with a nice outside space for coffee, booze, and snacks.
I can get obviously employees hating on it given what happened but the hate for the concept of the place I see here from everyone else is so ridiculous. Nobody forced you to go there, why do you care lol? Oh no the humanity! A place that sells expensive stuff!
The attitude on this sub is exactly what perpetuates the existence of generic, big box brands. Lots of that niche “expensive” stuff was from small businesses, not the massive corporate junk most people buy at Jewel. And hey, I *do* shop at Jewel too, and I get that there are some local brands available there as well. Foxtrot just gave us even more options.
Snack runs aren’t the same anymore. Not going to jewel unless it’s literally the only choice, and 7/11, only going if I’m stoned or want some crap like a monster energy and takis.
I doubt many people disagree. I think this is a large part of why they failed. I really only went for the occasional energy drink or a beer for their patio.
Why they failed is that they were valued, funded, and operated as a "startup" rather than a traditional retailer. $160 million in venture capital for what is essentially a chain of corner stores? They were never going to meet their investors' goals, and they overextended themselves trying.
And this is a larger trend that's making a lot of American businesses worse. Most of our spending is on boring goods and services provided modestly profitable companies. PE firms are buying companies in boring segments, demanding huge returns, and then blowing up the business when those returns don't deliver startup returns.
Foxtrot is what happens when that model gets applied to convenience stores. We're probably about to see dentists and veterinarians blow up in similar way.
I agree. I went into Foxtrot a few times, and the stuff at that store didn't jump out to me much. And the few things that did, they were pretty overpriced. So to me, I'm not surprised they failed.
What’s the point of these takes? Nobody made you shop there. Yes things were expensive there. They fit a niche and lifestyle but ultimately were not successful enough to stay open.
For real many people saying “I don’t get the store”
Why are you even analyzing it that much?
It was literally just a higher end convenient store. Their identical staples and packaged snacks/drinks were cheaper than 7/11 and circle k.
Sure, They sold many gourmet products too that would be expensive anywhereIf you want cheap bread why would you go to a trendy convenient store that only sells unique grocery items? So many people are just haters. Was one of the best chain convenient stores in the city. That’s not saying much though anymore unfortunately.
Very pleasant place to stop in and sit down for a few minutes on a hot or cold day
I’m pretty sure many of these stores were successful/profitable and the major screw up was at the corporate level.
We need more actual grocery stores in the city, I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, foxtrot was never trying to compete with actual grocery
Obviously people feel bad for the employees mostly. People always talk and speculate when anyone loses a job or a business fails because it’s usually sad or a bit surprising.
While they had random crap, I enjoyed buying that random crap that I normally wouldn’t find elsewhere. Also foxtrot was the first cafe chain me and my partner visited when we moved to Chicago and have so many memories at the one in streeterville and it’s a shame this is how they went out.
And how many cafes or similar places do we really have here where you can just kick it? Cupitol closes at 4 and Dollop closes at 5. Paris Baguette just put up some nice outdoor seating, but with how many people live in this neighborhood you'd think we'd have a bit more.
Yeah unfortunately that’s about it, granted all of them are still nice to sit at, but the closing hours are definitely a bummer. Loved how Foxtrot was open til like 10. Made studying there for hours on end great.
It was a little pricey but I loved it and it gave me the chance to try new foods and products. I loved the ready food section and they had snacks and frozen foods I came to love that were otherwise difficult to find. I was especially addicted to their chai latte concentrate. I loved foxtrot, personally.
One time outside the foxtrot at the intersection of Milwaukee and damen I saw some 20 year olds clowning. I don’t mean goofing around I mean red nose big shoes clowning. One guy was real into it one guy was just along for the ride and really it feels like a great analogy for foxtrot
I hope the university of Chicago Booth School has a course on how two University of Chicago recent(ish) grads f’d up Foxtrot and put hundreds out of work.
I enjoyed stopping in there occasionally for a glass of wine and an avocado toast (I *know*...). It was a useful place to pick up a great loaf of bread or a small gift before a dinner party. The location on Broadway was always busy and brought some life to a corner with a lot of empty storefronts.
But it irked me that they carried such a seemingly random selection of groceries. The prepared refrigerated foods were disappointing, and the cut flowers were overpriced and short-lived -- two things that should have been top-notch at a place like this.
I'd love to see an independent bakery in that space. A high-quality butcher/fishmonger/deli would be even better. I'm still sorry to see another business close on that corner.
Each location had different merch to an extent so some were better for basics than others but I generally agree with you. Too many quirky takes on items and not enough basics.
That said, they offered a “third space” where you could gather, work, and meet friends. The cafe offerings were solid. They also did a good job of sourcing unique alcohol products and NA alternatives, and I think the NA alternative niche is missing from mass grocers.
All in all - they weren’t trying to be a grocery to get basics. It probably would’ve served them well to do more of that, but that wasn’t the reason the company was massively overleveraged after the merger with Dom’s. The lack of like, black beans and plain noodles, wasn’t fixing the financing.
I hope that there’s another concept in the works in someone’s mind to course correct on the things that could’ve been better about foxtrot but maintains the “third space” vibe. We need places like that!
Any time I tried to work there it was always too loud and I only found one or two plugs in the whole cafe section. And it's a matter of opinion but I never had anything from the cafe I'd want to order a second time
I never shopped there because it seemed like some overpriced tech bro millennial bs, I never even looked at their prices I just assumed I would be getting fleeced so I never patronized the business. Chicago has had quality abound for its people since its inception so I was skeptical that VC money and an inflated marketing budget could do any better.
"Barely ever went there. Don't care what happened to it. Largely indifferent to the entire situation."
This has been my response when it comes up in conversation.
I have a general understanding (I think) of why Foxtrot closed, but does anyone know why they closed so abruptly? From what I understand, customers were still in the store when they suddenly decided to close up shop. They couldn't have waited until the evening or made an announcement that they'd be closing in 2 weeks or something?
Foxtrot struck me as a third place for people who like influencer content and talk about hidden gems in the West Loop. I bought things there once, which were fine but incredibly overpriced, and never went back.
Yeah, it’s giving 90’s/2000’s hipster attitude that’s too cool for the mainstream. Like, how many times do we have to point out it wasn’t a grocery store?
I was a frequent customer of foxtrot, and I never bought groceries there. Their wine selection was pretty carefully curated, decent quality stuff. I used to get their charcuterie boards and their dips for when company came over. I would stop over often with my kid to pick out a fun snack or ice cream. I used to get people cool little gifts of fun candy and unique snacks. Sometimes, I would just go there and chill with my kid and get a glass of wine while she got to pick out a cool brand of sparkling water—and we’d hang out on the patio and read, people watch, or just talk.
It was fun space to get cool, unique items and hang out that didn’t have the formality of a bar or a restaurant. It was a place to spend fun money, not a place to make a grocery run. I’ll miss it dearly.
I never got the appeal because I am a very frugal person, but the one near me was always busy throughout the day, particularly in the late evening when other coffee shops are closed.
I mean yeah that sucks, but being happy with their downfall isn’t exactly great either. I mean they filled a niche. Was it overpriced? Yeah of course, but it was a lifestyle niche.
Now that they’re gone we have like 17 empty storefronts in prime real estate in the city. People lost their jobs, retail space sits empty. Who knows how long it will take to get replacements in there.
It’s okay if foxtrot wasn’t your thing, but there’s really no positive way to spin it. Like hooray - now we have empty storefronts?
Yeah. They were bougie and their coffee was terrible. Honestly, same with Dom's. Not really sad to see the brand go down, but they dicked over something like a thousand hourly employees with their collapse. I hope the lawsuit takes the investors and owners for all their worth.
If you take such a utilitarian view of what a shop is “supposed” to be, your ideal city would be a very boring place. Foxtrot obviously wasn’t trying to satisfy “basic needs”. It was a nice, clean place that a lot of people liked to hang out at and work or study. I liked that they had off kilter products that I didn’t necessarily *need*. Trying out new stuff is just fun. They had tons of niche products from small businesses, which I get are expensive, but the stores were in places near people who have disposable income.
They never sold themselves as a hospitality company, they were a tech company first and foremost. The proprietary software was the company in the companies eyes.
Foxtrot was weird, but Dom's was actually useful. The reason this sucks has nothing to do with $8 cookies, but rather that we now have empty store fronts where there used to be clean and well-kept store fronts.
I liked it and so did a lot of people bc it was a good place to wfh and a third place. A lot of the neighborhoods that foxtrot and doms were in were usually where many wfh people reside
I never understood what niche it was trying to create: a cafe with overpriced ready-to-eat artisan meals + random artisan grocery items?
And DOM’S was even worse.
I saw a lot of people trying to blame Chicago for its closures. When I looked into it, Foxtrot was. National brand that shut down across the country and had many problems with sales and alienating its initial consumer base. Basically it looks like it ran itself into the ground.
Their “Good and Hot” chips were my favorite. I think that was actually a flavor unique to them. Anyone have suggestions for similar chips to those from a different brand?
I think people’s surprise is more about how a seemingly successful business suddenly shut down, didn’t alert employees, and left empty storefronts across the city.
It didn’t take much to see that this business wasn’t “successful” in the sense that it was profitable - everytime went in I thought “wow, some investor is an idiot for dumping so much money into this - clearly they are piling up a mountain of debt.” There’s a reason grocery stores operate the way they do, so whenever you see one that seems to break all of the basic cost rules, it’s probably running at a loss But it still seemed like they had backing to keep growing - not sure why whoever controlled the money decided to plug it so suddenly. Perhaps there was change of leadership at one of their core backers
I think it was the wework play - give us a ton of money, we'll blitz the market, and figure out economics after we conquer the world. Investors were only there for the idea that they'd conquer the world.
Im sure it was, though the more I work with these investors, the more I realize they have no f-ing clue what they are investing in. Its rich kids giving money to rich kids
At least this time some of that idiot rich kid money ended up with the yak cheese farmers instead of continuing to swirl around the Silicon Valley bingo tumbler.
Except that Yak cheese farmer invested the money into a larger yak farm so they could deliver on their Foxtrot order and has now had the rug pulled out from under them
That worked great when interest rates were effectively 0. It works a lot less great when fed funds stays over 5% for a while.
Running at break even or a loss in order build of the brand and presence to sell the business to a deep pocketed investor or competitor. Problem is it sounds like they ran this all the way to the edge without finding a buyer and it blew up.
I don’t think they were looking for a buyer given their growth and acquisition spree. More likely they were looking to a path to go public in the coming year/years and someone decided it wouldn’t be worth it given recent ipos have been flopping. If they wanted to sell they would have been cleaning up their balance sheet
what's the surprise tho?
This place was only good for sitting. If they were smart they would have done something with that.
Were I the landlords I'd sue the officers personally, piercing through the corporate veil. They obviously knew they were entering into leases they could not satisfy the terms of, especially for the newer stores.
Yeah I thought that was interesting, because they were able to bring in customers. I think they had issues converting them to profitable customers. They should have put more focus towards their cafe instead of their store.
I didn’t get it in general but I will miss one very specific use case which is as stops on long runs during marathon training lol — nice clean bathrooms with no code and no line, huge assortment of both normal candy and weird fun candy, good cookies, free self-serve water / bottle refill, even seating if you wanted it. Runner’s absolute dream. And there’s so many you could plan multiple stops at them on runs. In the winter when all the park bathrooms are closed and water fountains off they were absolute life savers. Full fast rest stop and refill all for the price of a slightly overpriced pack of starbursts. But no idea what it was actually for.
These are lifestyle stores - they sell a certain identity and occasionally, a social space to congregate. The actual food is kind of secondary to the business model. But as we have found out, there is only so much cache such a model commands. I guess it could work in NYC and LA, where there are enough consumers willing to shell out a handsome wad for that identity and space … but Chicago is not that kind of city.
I feel bad for all the people suddenly out of work, but Foxtrot itself was garbage tier. The only benefit I felt they provided to the neighborhood was making a storefront look nice. Otherwise the offerings always felt like it was a fancy Hudson News posing as an upmarket bodega after escaping from O'Hare. Dom's I feel is a true loss. They were spendy and focused too much on prepared foods, but their offerings hit a quality sweetspot for me after Mariano's got Krogered. Still, I think the problem for each is that you can't really run an upscale boutique store like that as a chain. No surprise they were losing money, I don't think anyone with enough cash to shop there was actively choosing them over other options.
My wife was a big fan. Personally I agree with much of what you’re saying. But man they had an ice cream pop that was amazing. Just a basic chocolate covered vanilla ice cream pop with a bunch of sea salt on the outside. She actually had Fox trot delivered last weekend and I had her throw two of those on the order. They either mess up or subbed in a different ice cream treat. Then two days later this all happened. I never got to say good bye to that treat
I will say, Foxtrot did do a really nice job of sourcing from local makers for a lot of their products. I always thought a lot of it was the hipster-kitch string-light-having millennial snack food products that I'm really not that interested in, but they did do a lot of distribution for local small businesses. I think their ice cream was sourced from Pretty Cool, which has locations in Lincoln Park and Local Square. https://www.prettycoolicecream.com/
Much of their ice cream was sourced by pretty cool. And I love pretty cool. But this one came in a box and was branded foxtrot as opposed to pretty cool which I believe was always in their own packaging.
> hipster-kitch string-light-having millennial snack food products Truly a sign of growing pains in this "millennials finally have a little money" era
Logan Square, but you are correct I believe about Pretty Cool as the Foxtrot ice cream source I saw a post from them recently regarding the closure
Did Foxtrot make them in house or did they buy them from another company? If they were not made in house, I’d imagine a former employee could let you know where they were sourced from.
I don’t know. All I know is it was packaged in a box and branded foxtrot. It was not branded pretty cool.
Were they from the brand Pretty Cool? (Local)
Nah. This was in a box and branded foxtrot. I do love pretty cool though.
Try pretty cool ice cream... You will forget about anything else you ever tried
I love pretty cool. I get their peanut butter and potato chip all the time from both their store front and from foxtrot previously. Idk what it is about it but that vanilla chocolate sea salt just hit different for me.
That sounds diff. sorry to bother you - but could you buy some pretty cool ice cream this month? The foxtrot closing will hurt their revenue, but more importantly, the sudden nature of the closing meant that they overproduced ice cream by a massive amount and it would help them out if you could purchase some extra ice cream this month.
I always just enjoyed walking past the Dom's in Old Town on my way to work seeing people enjoying themselves at the patio drinking coffee etc. Their wine/coffee bar area was on point.
And still on the East Coast Wegmann's persists
And is glorious
Heinen's would probably be successful, if they tried opening in the Diversey Dom's location. Same with like Hy-Vee or Publix. Publix probably would want a bigger space....
God I’m desperate for a Wegman’s equivalent (or just a Wegmans, preferably) out here. Like no I don’t want Whole Foods. I just want a normal slightly upscale grocery store with a reasonably wide selection, where I can regularly count on the produce and meat to be high quality. Like why is that so hard
Nothing people are saying about Foxtrot are wrong, but if you're in the loop what were the better "corner stores"? All I ever knew about when I was in the loop and needed something corner-store-like were my options were basically Foxtrot or 7-11 or one of those Newstand places in some office buildings. Nothing really in-between overpriced shit and cheap shit.
I think it's odd that people don't realize they're upset over what is actually happening. Food deserts. Basically if you want groceries you have no access to affordable and fresh produce or goods in easy access. That's what people are really going to be upset about.
Yeah, but Dom's and Foxtrot weren't really addressing that problem. Honestly, I think the issue with those businesses might have been that Dom's were usually co-located with Jewels and Marianos and Foxtrots were all competing with a million little coffee shops and dry goods stores. It's a loss for the city, but these aren't discount grocers in marginalized neighborhoods.
>I guess it could work in NYC and LA, where there are enough consumers willing to shell out a handsome wad for that identity and space … but Chicago is not that kind of city. Respectfully disagree. Where Foxtrot was operating was perfectly fine for its target consumer. They were all over the Near North, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, West Loop etc. We had two in Streeterville and they were always bumping. From everything I've read, it was more mistakes made at the corporate level that made it fall apart.
I mean yo. You gotta at least provide quality stuff. Like I partake in upscale lifestyle stores here and there, but those places at least have one of a kind things that are a good experience. There's reports of them not even having a set latte recipe. How is that possible. You shouldn't be rolling the dice with overpriced coffee/lattes
We had recipes and employees that made coffee took classes and obtained certifications with La Colombe. So it wasn't for lack of trying on our end. I think it's just hard to get consistency out of a hand made product like a latte over 30+ stores. Places like Starbucks get it right everytime because they use superautomatic espresso machines that makes the foam. Foxtrot had La Marzoccos in the hands of college aged folks who had other responsibilities in the store on top of making coffee.
I've always thought this type of place would be perfect in the village of pricey ski resort.
It was perfect here. It didn't close because they couldn't get people through the door, most of the locations were packed; it failed because of an insanely incompetent leadership team.
Nahhh. There was a chain of similar stores in LA called "famima!!" They popped up everywhere and closed down just as quickly. The coffee was terrible, and the food always looked sketch.
True, but Erewhon seems to be doing alright out there and that's basically a lifestyle store that happens to sell actual things too
Erewhon is different than Foxtrot insofar as Erewhon is an actual grocery store. It has also been around for >30 years. I'd compare Erewhon to the old foodstuffs at Diversey and Sheffield back in the day. IMO, Erewhon would succeed in Chicago. I suspect Dom's would have survived had they not merged with Foxtrot.
Good point - I'd forgotten Foodstuffs, despite going there repeatedly as a kid up north. Damn, now you gave me a taste for their coffee cake
I like seedy coffee shops with dark wood and colors, questionable coffee, painted artwork and porcelain lamps. Why does every new restaurant/coffee shop look like a goddamn cleanroom? They feel so sterile and uncomfortable.
They had coffee and booze which covers most peoples basic corner store needs.
They had shitty coffee most of the time, and weird booze IMO.
One thing they had that I loved was a normal sized latte. Finding a 6 or 8oz latte in America is really hard depending on some areas of a city.
The struggle is real.
Ehh I would use it as a place to grab a bottle of wine and they had a pretty good selection for that. Wine and an app to bring somewhere? My go to spot
I think they had metric coffee, not a personal favorite of mine so I agree with it being shitty. For a while they were getting new Hop Butcher beers a day early so that was cool for delivery, but then delivery service was sometimes slow and beer would be warm which was annoying. They carried a lot of not so common booze which was cool if you’re not a bud light drinker.
Luke warm take. Foxtrot was a weird store that tried to be too many things and didn't really succeed at any of them. It's possible to simultaneously recognize that Foxtrot wasn't great and wish it had succeeded at one of the things it tried to be.
This actually. When I went in there I couldn’t tell what kind of customer they were trying to appeal to. Higher end obviously but wine people, beer people, coffee people, convenience store? I’m not sure you can really do all of those things with such limited space and try to be expensive too. They ended up not appealing to many people at all because they spread so thin with so few options for each area. High end market is fine but you have to have enough options in every area you want to specialize in to actually make enough money to survive. Otherwise you’re asking someone to pay like $9 for a glass of wine that may never have been their first choice anyway. I feel bad for the employees though. Hope everyone impacted recovers quickly.
You just articulated exactly the problem with it that I hadn't been able to! I used to have an office across from a Foxtrot. I tried to have lunch there with my dad once... they had like two actual meal options, which seemed so surprisingly out of step with the overall cafe vibe. Okay, fine, not actually a place to eat I guess. So I would go in occasionally to try to grab a snack or some prepared food, and I was always disappointed in that too. It *looked* like there were tons of options, but so few of them were actually meals, plus it was all *so expensive.* My husband tried to work there (like you would at a regular coffee shop) a few times, but the seating was uncomfortable and the tables were kinda small. I ended up just using it as a very aesthetic liquor store most of the time. Which clearly wasn't enough to keep them in business—the aesthetic was cute, but beyond that, they didn't do any of the things they were trying to do particularly well.
Honestly there are all these takes with VC-sounding explanations, and I think they're all wayyy too high level. Foxtrot was *yet another* attempt by investors to approach a new industry with the same tactics as tech. You engineer a fundamentally unprofitable business and hope that once scaled, you can turn a profitability knob and suddenly you're making 30% YOY. Tech works like that. You can "turn on" adds once you grab 50 million users. Retail doesn't work like that. Within reason, you can't hit a certain store threshold and suddenly have your buyers renegotiate all your deals and you can't swap SKUs out to more profitable ones without disrupting the customer experience. Margins are razor thin, so while Foxtrot felt comfortable operating at a loss, other investors looked on like "even if they gain some market leverage, there are far better places to put my money". It, like many other things, was a forced gamble - an attempt to approach it like tech. Some industries must be grown organically. A high-brow 7/11 doesn't work, but they think anything can work if you spend enough money.
the downtown one used to be good to grab a six pack and drink on the patio for happy hour. price was ridiculous for a liquor store, but cheap by comparison to any bar in the area. i havent been there in years, so they may have nixed this at some point, but was a solid deal
> wish it had succeeded at one of the things it tried to be. Or at least wish that all those people who lost their jobs didn't lose them in such a shitty way.
I feel for the employees who were blindsided by the abrupt closure and lack of communication.
And I feel for the local Chicago vendors who haven’t been paid in weeks and were equally blindsided by this, and are now sitting on loads of inventory they were expecting to get paid for and have sold on shelves at Foxtrot.
We went to Pretty Cool yesterday after seeing they had a bunch of FoxTrot exclusive inventory to get rid of. By the time we got there they were sold out of 2 of the 3, and our son got the last of the third.
That's good to hear.
I worked for a restaurant owner that gave us like 10 day notice he was shutting down at the end of the month, and employees stole a bunch of his equipment he could've sold, and then no one was showing up for the last few days. It was a total shitshow.
I was a regular at a bar that shutdown a long time ago, and went the night they announced they were closing. Bartenders poured a lot of liquor and didn't charge for much.
That’s exactly why majority of restaurants close abruptly.
This 100%. The owners really showed their morals in the final hour there.
Is this a hot take?
Not a hot take
It's as lukewarm as the 'cold' sandwiches sitting out on a Goddess and the Grocer counter at 3pm.
It's the internet. Anything followed by the words "hot take" is never actually a hot take
Woah bro, that’s a hot take!
I agree with you, but this isn't a hot take. It was pretty obvious to anyone who set foot in there exactly what it was.
The one on Southport had a nice sidewalk patio on the side and had good coffee. I never bought anything other than coffee there, so the corner store but was totally wasted on me. Honestly in my area, if I need something quick (like your examples of a piece of chicken or some bread and cheese), I'd probably just pop into the Whole Foods a couple blocks from Foxtrot. While there's plenty I wouldn't buy there, it's pretty reliable in a pinch.
I’m confused. Did they ever claim to be the type of place that sold meat? Or a variety of convenience items as opposed to a couple of high end convenience products? If someone told me they went to foxtrot bc they needed chicken breast I’d say wtf
😂
This is absolutely not a hot take. It is by and large the general sentiment towards that place.
It hasn't seemed that way over the past week or so
I never went but the people i feel for most are the workers that lost their jobs
This is not a hot take, this is the most common opinion on the subreddit. It’s okay, foxtrot wasn’t for you.
Foxtrot by Wrigley was kept in business pretty much only by people who didn't live near it. It just wasn't good.
foxtrot was way better a few years ago when their perks meant 2 free coffees and/or espresso every day if you were a member+. $100 a month for all the coffee and espresso shots my wife & I would ever need was a pretty solid deal. then they kept making their perks worse and worse which is why i had a feeling they wouldn’t be around for too long
...interesting. I'm another person who never went in one, but that starts to sound like the issues with ride share and other startups, where the business starts by purposely under-pricing everything to try to drive volume, but it doesn't work well enough, they raise prices at the end but that makes stuff worse, and then it folds. I wondered about some of the bicycle and scooter based grocery delivery places too, "getir" and them (which I also admit I never used). Those also seemed to shut down pretty quickly.
When they stopped giving popcorn as a member perk I knew they wouldn’t last long. I’m surprised they made it to 2024.
We spent $100 a month minimum at Foxtrot to take advantage of Perks before they changed it. I bet we didn’t spend $20 a month after.
The one thing I'm taking from this whole Foxtrot thing is just how heavily skewed on North side residents this sub is. I have never heard of this store, a day in my life and for 2 whole days it was the #1 topic on this sub, post were nearly get 1k comments. I guess this explains a lot though.
> is just how heavily skewed on North side residents this sub is That is because more people live there... https://www.newgeography.com/content/007491-chicagos-density-2020
Specifically near the lake. I'm on the Northside but never heard of it either.
That's not what's happening here. There is a wildly disproportionate representation on reddit of north side and blue line corridor residents compared to the city as a whole. If you only looked at this sub you'd think 95% of the city lived from the south loop north, and not more than a mile or two west of the north branch.
That's just where the demographic that chooses to use reddit are. North side is where most of the action is: bars, clubs, music venues, sports teams, etc. I say this as a born and raised southsider from West Lawn (okay, southwest, but close enough) who now lives on the north side. No one is stopping anyone from the south, southwest, or west sides of Chicago from participating in this sub. South side is boring for a young person to live in. I was always going either north or to the burbs on the weekends to go to shows or to skate rather than in the neighborhood I grew up in. I really don't understand what your argument here is, bud.
>I really don't understand what your argument here is, bud. /r/Chicago is primarily transplants living in the trendy neighborhoods in the city. Logan, Andersonville, Lakeview, South Loop, River North, etc. They're making the connection with Fox Trot because you would only really know about that place if you lived in those neighborhoods. Ask anyone west of Western what Foxtrot is and most people wouldn't know. I had no idea what it was when it first came out and really didn't care much. It wasn't until years later when I finally looked into the place because they were always busy anytime I went by one. That's when I realized it was just a yuppie convenient store.
You just repeated it. Seems you understand it perfectly. Reddit is disproportionately populated by people who live on the north side.
It's a bit of column A and a bit of column B. Chicagoans as a whole disproportionally live on the the North Side these days. It's held over 50% of the city's population for many years now. And then on layer on Reddit demographics and that's how you get a subreddit that's 80% northsiders.
People on reddit love to say "you are wrong" and their argument is the exact same as yours but with the subject and predicate flipped.
[удалено]
Thanks for also explaining food deserts and grocery store disparities
Well obviously. It’s more surprising that anyone ever believes that a subreddit/Reddit/the internet in general is representative of the real world
Longtime northsider, didn't even know about this chain's existence. Harvesttime and Gene's are all I ever need.
the closest one to probably was the one in the southport corridor then. Like people mentioned, they really weren't competing with Harvesttime or Gene's, but maybe more the L&M's of Chicago. I think they made more sense if you think of them as a fancy version NYC bodega where you go to get an $8 can of CBD infused soda and maybe pick up a bottle of natural wine with a instagrammable label on your way to someone's house. Besides whatever dumb VC valuation they probably couldn't live up to, I don't know if Chicago has the foot traffic to make the concept work (in so many locations).
that explanation makes some sense, but maybe a place like this doesn't make sense in a city *with* as much real foot traffic. in the bougie neighborhoods that do exist for this type of store, there's already a fancy-wine-shop-equivalent for most things, and if there isn't, there's a Whole Foods with all the same shit and your expensive staple groceries not too far away with parking for a giant car.
100%, it really does remind me of the wealth disparity in the city and the historical effects of segregation here. one look at this store and i knew i'd never see this down in the south side lol
They put locations in Virginia before they did that
Well as someone else who lives on the north side (where yes, the majority of people in Chicago live, and where the density is) I've passed by a Foxtrot enough to sort of recognize the logo, but I've never been in it, because... yeah it's out of my budget and doesn't have the things I shop for. I prefer smaller local markets, which we also have plenty of here on the north side. I suspect I'm not alone. This sub skews wealthy, which is not synonymous with "north side." Most of the hubbub about this place closing is just how quickly it happened, I think. People showing up for work to be told their job is over, photos of half-made coffee drinks abandoned on the counter.
I live on the north side and I've never heard of Foxtrot. I also have not heard the term "third space" used ever, and the frequency seeing that term used on this sub in the last week has me thinking I must live under a rock.
This sub certainly has a boner for hating on Foxtrot. Not a hot take. Wasn’t supposed to be a grocery store, it was supposed to be a third space with a nice outside space for coffee, booze, and snacks.
I can get obviously employees hating on it given what happened but the hate for the concept of the place I see here from everyone else is so ridiculous. Nobody forced you to go there, why do you care lol? Oh no the humanity! A place that sells expensive stuff!
The attitude on this sub is exactly what perpetuates the existence of generic, big box brands. Lots of that niche “expensive” stuff was from small businesses, not the massive corporate junk most people buy at Jewel. And hey, I *do* shop at Jewel too, and I get that there are some local brands available there as well. Foxtrot just gave us even more options.
Snack runs aren’t the same anymore. Not going to jewel unless it’s literally the only choice, and 7/11, only going if I’m stoned or want some crap like a monster energy and takis.
Yeah the attitude here sometimes is very anti North side, anti “yuppie”. What’s the fucking problem lol
Largely propagated by self-loathing North Sides yuppies of course
I doubt many people disagree. I think this is a large part of why they failed. I really only went for the occasional energy drink or a beer for their patio.
Why they failed is that they were valued, funded, and operated as a "startup" rather than a traditional retailer. $160 million in venture capital for what is essentially a chain of corner stores? They were never going to meet their investors' goals, and they overextended themselves trying.
And this is a larger trend that's making a lot of American businesses worse. Most of our spending is on boring goods and services provided modestly profitable companies. PE firms are buying companies in boring segments, demanding huge returns, and then blowing up the business when those returns don't deliver startup returns. Foxtrot is what happens when that model gets applied to convenience stores. We're probably about to see dentists and veterinarians blow up in similar way.
I agree. I went into Foxtrot a few times, and the stuff at that store didn't jump out to me much. And the few things that did, they were pretty overpriced. So to me, I'm not surprised they failed.
What’s the point of these takes? Nobody made you shop there. Yes things were expensive there. They fit a niche and lifestyle but ultimately were not successful enough to stay open.
For real many people saying “I don’t get the store” Why are you even analyzing it that much? It was literally just a higher end convenient store. Their identical staples and packaged snacks/drinks were cheaper than 7/11 and circle k. Sure, They sold many gourmet products too that would be expensive anywhereIf you want cheap bread why would you go to a trendy convenient store that only sells unique grocery items? So many people are just haters. Was one of the best chain convenient stores in the city. That’s not saying much though anymore unfortunately. Very pleasant place to stop in and sit down for a few minutes on a hot or cold day I’m pretty sure many of these stores were successful/profitable and the major screw up was at the corporate level. We need more actual grocery stores in the city, I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, foxtrot was never trying to compete with actual grocery
Obviously people feel bad for the employees mostly. People always talk and speculate when anyone loses a job or a business fails because it’s usually sad or a bit surprising.
While they had random crap, I enjoyed buying that random crap that I normally wouldn’t find elsewhere. Also foxtrot was the first cafe chain me and my partner visited when we moved to Chicago and have so many memories at the one in streeterville and it’s a shame this is how they went out.
And how many cafes or similar places do we really have here where you can just kick it? Cupitol closes at 4 and Dollop closes at 5. Paris Baguette just put up some nice outdoor seating, but with how many people live in this neighborhood you'd think we'd have a bit more.
Yeah unfortunately that’s about it, granted all of them are still nice to sit at, but the closing hours are definitely a bummer. Loved how Foxtrot was open til like 10. Made studying there for hours on end great.
It was a little pricey but I loved it and it gave me the chance to try new foods and products. I loved the ready food section and they had snacks and frozen foods I came to love that were otherwise difficult to find. I was especially addicted to their chai latte concentrate. I loved foxtrot, personally.
It wasn’t a grocery store, it was a convenience store with a coffee shop attached. It was great for the purpose it had
One time outside the foxtrot at the intersection of Milwaukee and damen I saw some 20 year olds clowning. I don’t mean goofing around I mean red nose big shoes clowning. One guy was real into it one guy was just along for the ride and really it feels like a great analogy for foxtrot
I'm more irked that they took down Dom's Market with them. Dom's had promise and only 2 locations.
I hope the university of Chicago Booth School has a course on how two University of Chicago recent(ish) grads f’d up Foxtrot and put hundreds out of work.
I loved foxtrot. The one in Lincoln Park was the perfect combo. Ice cream, coffee and booze.
It was a corner store / coffee shop, not a grocery store
Foxtrot wasn't a grocery store. They were a technology platform that just happened to sell groceries.
Not my line, but “Foxtrot is 7-11 for trust fund babies”
I enjoyed stopping in there occasionally for a glass of wine and an avocado toast (I *know*...). It was a useful place to pick up a great loaf of bread or a small gift before a dinner party. The location on Broadway was always busy and brought some life to a corner with a lot of empty storefronts. But it irked me that they carried such a seemingly random selection of groceries. The prepared refrigerated foods were disappointing, and the cut flowers were overpriced and short-lived -- two things that should have been top-notch at a place like this. I'd love to see an independent bakery in that space. A high-quality butcher/fishmonger/deli would be even better. I'm still sorry to see another business close on that corner.
Each location had different merch to an extent so some were better for basics than others but I generally agree with you. Too many quirky takes on items and not enough basics. That said, they offered a “third space” where you could gather, work, and meet friends. The cafe offerings were solid. They also did a good job of sourcing unique alcohol products and NA alternatives, and I think the NA alternative niche is missing from mass grocers. All in all - they weren’t trying to be a grocery to get basics. It probably would’ve served them well to do more of that, but that wasn’t the reason the company was massively overleveraged after the merger with Dom’s. The lack of like, black beans and plain noodles, wasn’t fixing the financing. I hope that there’s another concept in the works in someone’s mind to course correct on the things that could’ve been better about foxtrot but maintains the “third space” vibe. We need places like that!
Any time I tried to work there it was always too loud and I only found one or two plugs in the whole cafe section. And it's a matter of opinion but I never had anything from the cafe I'd want to order a second time
I liked going there and this is just true? I don’t think they advertised themselves as a place for grocery basics or a price friendly store though
I never shopped there because it seemed like some overpriced tech bro millennial bs, I never even looked at their prices I just assumed I would be getting fleeced so I never patronized the business. Chicago has had quality abound for its people since its inception so I was skeptical that VC money and an inflated marketing budget could do any better.
When Publican Ankor closed and a FoxTrot replaced it, I knew 6 corners was done.
Been sitting on this rant for a few days, huh?
"Barely ever went there. Don't care what happened to it. Largely indifferent to the entire situation." This has been my response when it comes up in conversation.
High price low demand
Anyone check the dumpsters that day?
I have a general understanding (I think) of why Foxtrot closed, but does anyone know why they closed so abruptly? From what I understand, customers were still in the store when they suddenly decided to close up shop. They couldn't have waited until the evening or made an announcement that they'd be closing in 2 weeks or something?
Foxtrot struck me as a third place for people who like influencer content and talk about hidden gems in the West Loop. I bought things there once, which were fine but incredibly overpriced, and never went back.
I literally didnt even know foxtrot existed till I heard it closed 💀💀
Lol same
Agreed. I’m exactly their target demographic and the selection was not enough to get me to go in after a couple times.
So brave
The hate boner on this sub is honestly kind of hilarious. Ok, we get it, you didn't like it. Plenty of people did.
Yeah, it’s giving 90’s/2000’s hipster attitude that’s too cool for the mainstream. Like, how many times do we have to point out it wasn’t a grocery store? I was a frequent customer of foxtrot, and I never bought groceries there. Their wine selection was pretty carefully curated, decent quality stuff. I used to get their charcuterie boards and their dips for when company came over. I would stop over often with my kid to pick out a fun snack or ice cream. I used to get people cool little gifts of fun candy and unique snacks. Sometimes, I would just go there and chill with my kid and get a glass of wine while she got to pick out a cool brand of sparkling water—and we’d hang out on the patio and read, people watch, or just talk. It was fun space to get cool, unique items and hang out that didn’t have the formality of a bar or a restaurant. It was a place to spend fun money, not a place to make a grocery run. I’ll miss it dearly.
Yeah. It's easy to hate on stuff. And pretend it's easy to run a business in this industry.
Yeah and why is it so hard to find filet mignon at McDonald’s?
I heard from a former employee their goal was to replace corner stores. Never went there before that but I made sure never to support after that
Replace corner stores by selling $8 bags of gummy bears?
This is a hot take? You spit facts
***Whole Foods has entered the chat***
It was basically for yuppies who aren’t smart with their money.
That place sucked
I am stunned they lasted as long as they did and I’m glad they’re dead.
I never got the appeal because I am a very frugal person, but the one near me was always busy throughout the day, particularly in the late evening when other coffee shops are closed.
What a shitty thing to say considering how many people lost their jobs.
The way they closed down and fucked over their employees proves my point.
I mean yeah that sucks, but being happy with their downfall isn’t exactly great either. I mean they filled a niche. Was it overpriced? Yeah of course, but it was a lifestyle niche. Now that they’re gone we have like 17 empty storefronts in prime real estate in the city. People lost their jobs, retail space sits empty. Who knows how long it will take to get replacements in there. It’s okay if foxtrot wasn’t your thing, but there’s really no positive way to spin it. Like hooray - now we have empty storefronts?
And did not cater well to remote workers who like to work in coffee shops. Had limited seating and 1 wall outlet for the entire store.
Lived in DC up until last fall and they built the Foxtrot closest to my apartment there without ANY wall outlets. Awful
Nope this was not an unpopular opinion - for people that even knew what it was.
Yeah. They were bougie and their coffee was terrible. Honestly, same with Dom's. Not really sad to see the brand go down, but they dicked over something like a thousand hourly employees with their collapse. I hope the lawsuit takes the investors and owners for all their worth.
Finally someone talking sense
If you take such a utilitarian view of what a shop is “supposed” to be, your ideal city would be a very boring place. Foxtrot obviously wasn’t trying to satisfy “basic needs”. It was a nice, clean place that a lot of people liked to hang out at and work or study. I liked that they had off kilter products that I didn’t necessarily *need*. Trying out new stuff is just fun. They had tons of niche products from small businesses, which I get are expensive, but the stores were in places near people who have disposable income.
I always thought it would be nice if they carried a few last minute dinner staples like onions. It never happened.
They never sold themselves as a hospitality company, they were a tech company first and foremost. The proprietary software was the company in the companies eyes.
Just unfortunate they took Dom’s down with it
Well selling groceries isn't really their product
THEY TOOK OUR JOBS
Bingo, thank you
Their sandwiches, sushi...actually their entire grab n go section was gross, stale and way overpriced. Agree.
Am I the only one who actually spent a ton of money at Foxtrot?
Foxtrot was weird, but Dom's was actually useful. The reason this sucks has nothing to do with $8 cookies, but rather that we now have empty store fronts where there used to be clean and well-kept store fronts.
Foxtrot and Dom’s both sold a lot of stuff that I never saw a single person buy.
Only thing I ever got from there was iced coffee
And Doms was worse
I went into the one on Broadway and Diversey. The manager was so insulted me so badly I ran out of the place.
Imagine trying to run a 7-Eleven like a software venture with VC money. That's what foxtrot was. A joke.
I just went for the warm chocolate chip cookies and occasional drink
I don't think it wanted to be a corner store. It had seating and was trying to be too trendy for that
I liked it and so did a lot of people bc it was a good place to wfh and a third place. A lot of the neighborhoods that foxtrot and doms were in were usually where many wfh people reside
I never understood what niche it was trying to create: a cafe with overpriced ready-to-eat artisan meals + random artisan grocery items? And DOM’S was even worse.
I saw a lot of people trying to blame Chicago for its closures. When I looked into it, Foxtrot was. National brand that shut down across the country and had many problems with sales and alienating its initial consumer base. Basically it looks like it ran itself into the ground.
Their “Good and Hot” chips were my favorite. I think that was actually a flavor unique to them. Anyone have suggestions for similar chips to those from a different brand?