Mrs. Fields, the sweet old woman with the cookies, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today because flour and milk have become too expensive. Besides, you people aren’t splurging on luxuries likes sweets or meals out anyway thanks to the ongoing non-recession inflation thing that also killed off Bennigan’s.
Under a prepackaged bankruptcy, Mrs. Fields would file for Chapter 11 protection having already developed a plan to repay its creditors and exit from bankruptcy. Mrs. Fields’s restructuring plan calls for its noteholders to exchange their $195.7 million in notes for $90 million in cash, $50 million in new senior secured notes and 87.5% of the company’s new common stock. The noteholders are expected to recover 86.5% on their claims.
The Mrs. Fields brand was born in 1977, when Debbi Fields opened up her first cookie shop in Palo Alto, Calif. The company turned to franchising in 1990 and has nearly 390 locations in the U.S. and 80 internationally, according to its Web site, plus hundreds of TCBY stores.
The company, however, has struggled with a heavy debt load and has racked up losses in recent months. Mrs. Fields posted a net loss of about $10.7 million for the quarter ended June 28.
Guess the scent of cookies isn’t enough to convince consumers to splurge after all.
Mrs. Fields Will Seek Bankruptcy Protection [The Wall Street Journal]
Cookie Maker Mrs. Fields Files for Chapter 11 [Fox Business]
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@TomCruisesTesticles:
“I can buy plain ice cream, a candy bar, and a sledgehammer and make my own mix-in.”
I have visions of a “Gallagher” act type thing. Pretty funny.
These cookies are gross, I wouldn’t feed them to a dog. I hope Mrs. Fields eats the hard shaft of failure.
God,please don’t let cinnabon go under..I dream about em..
Every time I ever bought one of their cookies I always felt a little guilty about how overpriced they were. As a result I never went there anymore. Regardless of how good the cookies are, they were just way too expensive for what you got.
@crescentia:
@ Bishop O’Dowd HS in Oaktown? Did your aunt also tell you how Mrs. Fields got kicked out of said highschool? Interesting story, ask her about it. (ps: if your aunt’s name is Cindy – tell her an old QF bud says howdy)
@cmdrsass: I agree with dantsea. Although the price of ingredients is increasing, the food cost of a Mrs. Fields cookie is quite small compared to its $1.50/unit price. Therefore, an increase in flour and butter costs might lead to a small per-cookie increase in prices, but not enough to bankrupt the company. On the other hand, in a $6/hr wage economy, people readily forgo $1.50 cookies when they are feeling financially pinched. Moreover I suspect people aren’t into cookies so much now with people sucking down quarts of soda, eschewing other carbs, and smoking crack.
@chilled: I’m aware of a couple Cinnabons that have closed in the past year. Uh-oh.
I found their cookies to be gross, never went back. They really bombed TCBY pretty bad. We used to have a couple of stand alone stores. The product was good and the stores were clean. At some point they changed and offered TCBY in other stores. There is one in a really nasty Burger King and another in a Little Caesar’s Pizza that also has gas pumps out front. I wouldn’t eat food out of either business ever. So they have no standards in who or where TCBY went.
I think this one reeks of mismanagement more than the excuse of high commodity prices. High commodity prices might have been the last straw or a convenient excuse.
“Sweet OLD woman” ???? Debbie Fields is MILF, I say! MILF!
@AmericaTheBrave:
Mmmmm. MILF, and cookies!
Geez, with all of the corporate bankruptcies lately maybe congress should impose some kind of penalty to their executives like in the personal bankruptcy world. I for one would like to see these poor wittle CEOs take a financial responsibility course, submit to a payment plan, and auction their shit off.
It seems to me that there’s a great disparity between people of ordinary means, and corporate greedheads. When regular folk run out of money they get run through the wringer. When big corporations run out of money, not only do the primary offenders get off scott free, but the government is standing by to shovel money at them to keep them afloat.
I also read earlier this week in the WSJ that UNO Pizzeria, Real Mex (owns Chevys restaurants), Perkins and Marie Callenders (owned by same company) and Bakers Square are all in trouble, closing restaurants, trying to line up financing or going into bankrupcy. As mentioned above, Coldstone is in trouble too, not just because of the high price of the ice cream, but the franchisees are hamstrung by mandates that they buy supplies from one supplier at a high cost, excessive couponing and opening stores too close together.
I can see how Mrs. Fields would be in trouble. Spending over two dollars on a cookie is just not justifiable anymore for many people, and mall traffic is down too.
@AmericaTheBrave:
yup i’d eat her cookie:)
@crescentia: What comes around goes around, meaning that anybody who had somebody dislike them in high school is guaranteed to have a business succeed for thirty years?
I’ve never been a huge fan of the cookies themselves , but you don’t accidentally make a success of a business as similar ones fail alongside you. Businesses don’t last forever, and thirty years is a pretty good run. I’m not convinced that she put hordes of Mom and Pop stores out of business; the very notion of a store that wasn’t really a bakery but just a cookie shop was pretty novel at the time, which is why a number of such started popping up at the same time (David’s, for instance, is another survivor of that boom).
@floraposte:
Meaning that if you are a rude b*i*t*c*h to people it is going to turn around and bite your ass eventually. She doesn’t own the company any longer but I’m betting she isn’t having the greatest of times right now.
Easy solution to Debbie’s financial problems, at least in CA: Pot cookies!
Well WTF… Who could have ever figured out that consumers would be a little hesitant to pay $2 for a damn cookie.
But of course it isn’t their overpriced crappy cookies, it’s easier to blame material prices…
Man, this bums me out. I love their cookie cups because I’m a huge fan of their white frosting. I can’t make that stuff at home (unless somebody knows the recipe for their white frosting? please?).
Damn it…I buy too little of them. Wonder what this means in its international stores, and whether or not this means Ben & Jerry’s is fucked.
@crescentia: I think that’s more a satisfying thought for classmates who will never make anything near that amount of money than it is reality. This was a successful business, and it lasted well longer than average for a business; nor did it eventually fail because she was mean to people in gym thirty-five years ago.
Much as it might be satisfying to think that people who weren’t nice to us will get theirs, business failure isn’t a payback for being a mean girl/guy in a previous century, any more than people are getting their homes foreclosed for being jerks at summer camp once.
HOLY FUCKSTICKS. Let me explain. My last name is Fields, I’m getting married in October, my fiancee has decided that during desert at the reception, there will be Mrs. Fields cookies on all the tables. This may be what sends her into an emotional depression.
Franchising can suck the soul out of any good product or idea, so I’m not too upset to see a company like this go (even though I’ve enjoyed their cookies in the past)… but seriously, what is a Point-of-Purchase cookie company doing racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt??? If your profit is counted in pennies on sales that depend on traffic thru malls, you’ve gotta stay lean and hungry.
You know, the more I research this, the more I’m glad they’re gone. There’s nothing “homey” or “personal” about their operation and the fact that it’s “run” by a “nice lady” is a farce considering all of the pointy-haired white men who put her company public. The company existed to serve only one means: to make money for the multiple owners and board members. Mabye it used to be about the cookies, but a not anymore.
@TVarmy: Thanks for the acemart tip. search term is “disher”.
This whole thing about Mrs. Fields is a joke. Didn’t they exist to make people buy (the smell of chocolate or baking has a side effect ya know…). Effem.
I actually work at the Mrs. Fields phone orders division, and I’ve been off for the last like 5 days, so this morning, I get a memo on what to say to customers about this. Can’t say I’m surprised though.
I like Mrs. Fields cookies, but those Betty Crocker cookie mixes that you just put an egg and a stick of butter in, are pretty dang good, and you can bake a whole batch for the price of a few Mrs. Fields.
you know, the local mall used to have orange julius and hickory farms. now they’ve been replaced with “teen steem” lingerie shops and smart ass coffee kiosks. The world is fuct.
@floraposte: hmmm. Successful entrepreneurs are often type A people, or at least driven, or control freaks, etc. When you are a woman running a business, and have people periodically slight you (not to mention I still deal with customers who automatically assume I’m a man) it’s hard not to have qualms about the “bitch” label. Is she truly an unpleasant person, or is that she plays hardball like a male businessman would?
Beyond that, I’m also bothered by the implication that we should be happy the business is failing, and all the employees may lose their jobs, because she might have been bratty in high school.