The costs vary by store, many locations will spend “a couple hundred thousand (dollars) at least” on the renovations, Max & Erma’s President Steve Weis said in December.
The makeovers are part of Max & Erma’s efforts to claw its way back from a 2009 bankruptcy in a highly competitive casual-dining segment of the restaurant industry that includes Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, O’Charley’s, Ruby Tuesday, Bennigan’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and Chili’s. The casual-dining chain’s parent company is Denver-based American Blue Ribbon Holdings, which bought the company out of bankruptcy for $27.5 million in September 2010.
Once a publicly traded company before it was purchased in April 2008 by Pittsburgh entrepreneur Gary Reinert Sr., Max & Erma’s had more than 100 corporate-owned and franchised stores in 2006, but had dropped to about 80 by the time it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2009. It closed its first Dayton-area restaurant on Kingsridge Drive behind the Dayton Mall in Miami Twp. just a few weeks after the bankruptcy filing. Today, Max & Erma’s operates more than 70 restaurants in nine Midwestern states.
The Thursday rededication will begin at 6 p.m. In conjunction with the reopening, the restaurant is holding a day-long fundraiser for the Butler High School Performing Arts Association. Supporters who present their server with a fundraiser flier available at the school, Max & Erma’s will donate 20 percent of the total tab to the association.
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