Salad and Go closing all locations today: Cyclospora outbreak proves to be final nail for embattled chain

Salad and Go closing all locations today: Cyclospora outbreak proves to be final nail for embattled chain

Michael Grothaus

Wed, August 5, 2026 at 3:28 PM GMT+3 4 min read

It seems hardly a month has gone by this year without a popular fast-food chain announcing it is closing stores. That continues to be true for August.

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The owners of Salad and Go, a drive-through fast-food chain that operated in the U.S. Southwest and south central regions, are seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and will close all remaining locations. Here's what you need to know.

What's happened?

On August 4, And Go Concepts, owner and operator of Salad and Go, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division.

After several years of financial struggle—including the past year, during which the company had already closed numerous locations—Salad and Go is winding down and will close all of its remaining locations, the filings reveal.

Salad and Go was founded in 2013 in Gilbert, Arizona, as a healthy fast-food option. The company's stores were drive-through only, serving salads, wraps, and breakfast items—making it easy for people who wanted a quick, healthy meal for relatively low cost.

For the first eight years of its existence, Salad and Go's store footprint expanded in Arizona. But in 2021, the company's private equity investors sought expansion into additional states, including Texas, Oklahoma, and Nevada.

It turns out that this rapid expansion over a period of a few years would be one of the leading factors in the company's demise.

In 2025, Salad and Go began closing locations to rein in costs. Last September, the company closed 41 locations in Texas and Oklahoma. In January, the company closed all the remaining 32 locations in those states.

"After assessing our business, we made the decision to exit our Texas and Oklahoma markets and refocus on strengthening our core operations in Arizona and Nevada," the CEO, Mike Tattersfield, told Fast Company in an email at the time of the January closures.

Now, even the Arizona and Nevada locations will be closing.

Why are Salad and Go locations closing?

Salad and Go's remaining locations are closing because the company is winding down operations after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. As for why the company is going out of business, multiple factors are involved, according to the bankruptcy filing.

One of the largest contributing factors was the company's decision to rapidly expand into other states in 2021.

In a court filing, the company lays out everything that went wrong with its expansion into Texas and Oklahoma:

• "Sites that were not as accessible to automotive traffic and visible to customers as the Arizona locations"

• "Building large numbers of units ahead of consumer awareness"

• "High fixed overhead costs from the Central Kitchen-commissary model (the Garland Facility), resulting in $15–20 million per year in overhead costs"

• "Price increases and food-safety events in the salad industry that impaired customer traffic in addition to company-specific challenges"

Other factors the company cited included liquidity challenges, which encompassed so-called "dead rents," or payments still due on leases where the stores had been closed, as well as rising gas prices and reduced consumer spending.

Finally, the company said the Cyclospora outbreak also had a negative impact on it. Though the company's lettuce was not involved in the outbreak, public awareness of it led some consumers to stay away from lettuce products.

"One news source reported that on July 11, 2026, average foot traffic at some of the Company's most significant competitors was reduced between 3.1–11.5 percent," Salad and Go's filing read. "In the fast-casual dining industry, which operates on very tight margins, a drop in sales by that percentage is devastating."

How many Salad and Go locations are closing?

In the company's bankruptcy filing, Salad and Go said that at its peak, the company operated 146 stores across Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Texas.

All of the Oklahoma and Texas stores shuttered for good earlier this year.

Now, all of the company's remaining stores in Arizona and Nevada are shuttering this week as well. That amounts to 70 store closures.

Which Salad and Go locations are closing?

According to the store locator tool on Salad and Go's website, the company lists seven stores in Nevada, all in the Las Vegas area, and 63 in Arizona.

In Arizona, Phoenix had the most Salad and Go locations, with 17.

All of these stores will close by today (Wednesday, August 5), according to an email from the company cited by local media and circulating on Reddit.

Addressing the closures, Tattersfield told the news organization Arizona's Family, "This is a painful day for everyone who built, worked for and loved Salad and Go."

He added: "Our mission was brought to life every day by an extraordinary team and embraced by guests who made us part of their routines. We are proud of what we built together and grateful to every team member, guest and partner who believed in it."

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com
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