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Cyclospora just one factor in Salad & Go demise. Marcy Kreiter | August 28, 2026 FI Fast Facts: * Insiders say Salad & Go's financial troubles predated the Cyclospora outbreak. * Rapid expansion, rising costs and weak demand hurt the chain's performance. * Dutch Bros and 7 Brew have pursued former Salad & Go sites. The Cyclospora outbreak may not have caused Salad & Go's bankruptcy, but, coupled with ever-shifting consumer attitudes and the economy in general, it may have convinced the fast-casual restaurant chain there was no point in hanging on, experts told The Food Institute. Salad & Go filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 4 and announced it would close all 70 remaining locations. A day later, Dutch Bros announced it planned to acquire 65 of the sites in Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma and Texas to "expand our leadership position." Bidding for former Salad & Go sites has continued in recent days, including among coffee-centric chains like Dutch Bros and 7 Brew. Is cyclosporiasis still happening? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the Cyclospora outbreak across five states July 16, later expanding it to cover 15 states and tying it to iceberg lettuce linked to Taylor Farms. As of Aug. 20, the FDA and CDC were still investigating the multistate outbreak. Alfred Golberg, chief brand strategist at Absolute Marketing Solutions, said though the outbreak may have played a role, Salad & Go showed signs of strain much earlier. "They closed 40 locations in 2025 as a strategic pullback indicating financial and performance concerns long before the outbreak," Goldberg said. "Then, in January of this year, they closed 32 more units, completely exiting Texas and Oklahoma - two big markets. "Most likely rapid expansion and the challenges facing many restaurant chains right now, such as consumer demand and rising costs, led to financial difficulties," Goldberg said. The outbreak, Goldberg added, "may have been the straw that broke the camel's back." And the drive-thru salad chain was not the only salad-centric operation to show the strain. Data from Plaicer.ai shows foot-traffic at Chopt fell markedly in the last week of July, down nearly 14% on the 28th alone. Fast-casual traffic overall was down 3.1% to 11.5% shortly after the Cyclospora outbreak was announced. As part of the bankruptcy filing Salad & Go CFO Francis Gallagher said such precipitous drops are "devastating." Bankruptcy highlights restaurant cost crisis. Attorney Daniel Gielchinsky said declining customer demand and too-rapid expansion likely doomed the chain, along with "strategic and operational missteps, leadership turnover, rising operating costs that are being experienced industrywide, and finally, a loss of consumer confidence after the outbreak." Salad & Go was founded in 2013 and headquartered in Phoenix. The company was sold to the private equity firm Volt Investment Holdings by founders Tony and Roushan Christofellis in 2021. The bankruptcy case was filed in Houston. "This is a painful day for everyone who built, worked for and loved Salad & Go," CEO Mike Tattersfield said in a statement quoted by KTAR, Phoenix. Restaurant Dive reported that in its heyday, Salad & Go had a vertically integrated supply chain, its ingredients readied in a central kitchen. At its peak, it was worth $1 billion and had 146 locations. An effort that began in February to sell the company failed. As part of the bankruptcy filing Gallagher blamed rising gasoline prices, in part, for accelerating cash losses in the last three months. The Food Institute podcast. In the foodservice industry, pricing variance does not announce itself. It accumulates line by line, across distributors, across weeks - and by the time a reconciliation team finds it, the recovery window has often closed. iTradeNetwork's Jeff Ramsaur shows how pricing overcharges happen in multi-distributor foodservice environments and what it costs when detection happens after the invoice is settled.

Dutch Bros Coffee locations in the Central Valley to give back to Ronald McDonald House. Posted: Aug 26, 2026 / 09:53 PM PDT Updated: Aug 26, 2026 / 09:57 PM PDT MADERA, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - Over 35 Dutch Bros Coffee locations in the Central Valley are partnering with Ronald McDonald House Charities on Friday. The Dutch Bros Foundation is going to donate $1 for every drink sold at select coffee locations on Friday. The proceeds will go to Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Central Valley's Dollars for Dinner Campaign. This campaign helps provide daily meals for families staying at the Ronald McDonald House. "At Ronald McDonald House, we provide essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families and promote healing when children need healthcare," according to a statement on the RMHC website. You can participate in this charity event by buying drinks at the select locations in Madera, Merced, Porterville, Hanford, Lemoore, and other spots. The complete list of locations is below. This campaign is meant to provide funding to help families receive meals when volunteer groups cannot cook for them. This is a one-day giveback event, so if you want to help support families with critically ill children, make sure to visit a select location on Friday.

Little Elm's new businesses: chains on the parkways, new owners at the lake. August 27, 2026 Drive west on Eldorado Parkway past Oak Grove Parkway this month and you'll pass a construction site with ACE Hardware signage going up next to a Burn Boot Camp, part of the Ace Oaks development where exterior work is mostly finished and interior inspections are underway. Ten minutes later, turn toward the water and you'll park in front of the same restaurant building you've always known, except the name over the door and the hands running the kitchen have both changed. Little Elm added more new businesses this year than almost any recent twelve-month stretch, but the two halves of town got there in completely different ways, and that difference tells you more about where the town is headed than a simple list of openings ever could. The parkways are filling with names you already know. The corridor along Eldorado Parkway, Little Elm Parkway, and Oak Grove Parkway is where the town's newest square footage is going, and almost none of it is unfamiliar. Chipotle is opening at 2685 Little Elm Parkway. Auntie Anne's and Jamba Juice are moving into the Little Elm Retail center at 2750 Little Elm Parkway. Ace Oaks, at 2130 to 2140 Oak Grove Parkway, is bringing in ACE Hardware alongside Burn Boot Camp, with shell buildings ranging from roughly 13,500 to nearly 14,700 square feet still available for lease. Dutch Bros has already opened one location this year, and a second is listed among projects still under review, alongside a future Kroger along Highway 380 and a Target planned for the Bates Town Crossing development. This is franchise expansion, plain and simple. Someone in a corporate real estate office looked at Little Elm's growth numbers and decided the town could support another coffee chain, another sandwich concept, another hardware store. None of that is a knock on the town. It's a sign the rooftops finally caught up to the retail formulas that need a certain population density to pencil out. Not every new address fits that pattern. Along FM 423, a smaller development called Little Elm Court has welcomed Casa Mia, Tiger Sun Martial Arts, The Family Doctors, Jacques Couture Nail Bar, and Ivory Dental Studio, a mix of independent, service-oriented businesses that look nothing like the parkway plazas. So the corridor growth isn't purely a chain story either. It's closer to this: the biggest, newest developments are chain-anchored, while the smaller infill spots are still catching independent operators who want a storefront near a growing residential base. The Lakefront isn't building. It's changing hands. Head the other direction, toward The Lakefront at Little Elm, and the growth story flips. This is a built-out entertainment district on Lewisville Lake, and there's very little raw land left to develop there. So instead of new construction, the news this year has been about who's running the places that already exist. Capriotti's, Poached Brunch House, and Jimmy's Big Burger have all changed ownership, according to the Little Elm Economic Development Corporation's own roundup of the year's business activity. Leo's Brunch House added a new patio rather than a new address. Hula Hut, once a fixture of the Lakefront dining scene with its waterfront patio and live music, has closed and no longer appears in current dining recommendations for the district. The one genuine new arrival at the Lakefront itself is Thai in Town, opening at 211 E. Eldorado Parkway inside the district. That makes it the exception that proves the rule: even when something new does land at the lake, it's an independent restaurant filling a gap, not a national chain moving in the way one is on the parkway. The most telling change isn't a restaurant at all. The Cottonwood Creek Marina ship store reopened this year, sitting right next to the town's newest amenity, Cottonwood Creek Park, both accessed off Lobo Lane on the lake's northeast shore. That's public and private investment landing in the same spot at the same time, which is a different growth mechanism entirely from a franchise signing a lease off the parkway. Here's how the two tracks actually compare: | Where | What's changing | Examples | | Eldorado Pkwy / Little Elm Pkwy / Oak Grove Pkwy | New construction, mostly franchise brands | ACE Hardware and Burn Boot Camp at Ace Oaks, Chipotle, Auntie Anne's, Jamba Juice, Dutch Bros | | FM 423 (Little Elm Court) | Small independent service businesses in existing space | Casa Mia, Tiger Sun Martial Arts, The Family Doctors, Jacques Couture Nail Bar, Ivory Dental Studio | | The Lakefront District | Existing addresses under new local ownership, plus one new independent restaurant | Capriotti's, Poached Brunch House, Jimmy's Big Burger, Thai in Town | | Cottonwood Creek (Lobo Lane) | Public park investment paired with a reopened private amenity | Cottonwood Creek Park and the marina's reopened ship store | The fall calendar doesn't split the same way. Whatever track a business took to get here, the town's event calendar pulls everyone toward the same handful of dates. A few worth putting on the fridge: * August 22 - Farmers Market at The Lawn, 125 Main Street * September 12 - Lights, Camera, Lawn: a free outdoor screening of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie at The Lawn, with vendors including Mr. Jim's Pizza and Kona Ice * September 17 through 20 - Autumn Fest at Little Elm Park, 701 W. Eldorado Parkway, with a carnival, food trucks, and live music across all four days * September 18 - Reputation: A Tribute to the Music of Taylor Swift performs at Autumn Fest * September 19 - Topanga, a 90s cover band, closes out the second night Thursday and Sunday nights of Autumn Fest are wristband nights, meaning one wristband covers unlimited carnival rides for kids, a detail that matters if you're planning around a four-day festival with young kids in tow. What the split actually means if you live here. None of this changes where you'll do your Tuesday errands or your Friday night out, at least not yet. The parkway corridor is becoming the place for the routine stuff: hardware, coffee, a workout class, a burrito bowl. The Lakefront stays the place you already knew, just with new people behind the counter at a few spots you used to visit. If Jimmy's Big Burger or Poached Brunch House felt a little different on your last visit, that's not you imagining it. It's new ownership settling in. The more useful thing to watch is what happens next. The corridor still has room to fill (those Ace Oaks shell buildings aren't leased yet, and the Dutch Bros under review plus the planned Kroger and Target inside Bates Town Crossing suggest the parkway pipeline isn't close to finished). The Lakefront, by contrast, is close to built out, which means its growth will keep looking like ownership changes and small additions like patios rather than new addresses. Two different playbooks, running at the same time, in the same town. If you're weighing what a home near either corridor is worth given how fast the retail base around it is filling in, or you're curious how financing works differently for a lot near the Lakefront versus one closer to the parkway build-out, Real Estate Resources knows both sides of Little Elm well enough to walk you through it. You can also browse current Little Elm listings and neighborhood data any time you're ready to look closer.