A Twin Peaks franchisee in Florida filed simultaneous bankruptcy petitions this week, but the company’s co-CEO said the restaurants involved are open and operating “and it’s business as usual.”
“Nobody, no employees, no vendors, no customers will notice or see any difference, and there won’t be any difference,” said Jack Flechner, co-CEO of DMD Ventures. “And the goal is to resolve this with our debt holder, and once we do that, we’ll be even better and stronger than we were before.”
DMD Ventures, based in Davie, Florida, has eight Twin Peaks restaurants in the southern part of the state. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection January 6 for two of its affiliates, DMD Florida Development 2 and DMD Florida Restaurant Groups C and D, which operate two Twin Peaks units.
The filings come after one of DMD’s largest creditors, Florida Restaurant Franchise Group, sued DMD in May 2024 in Collier County Court alleging breach of a promissory note and default of payment.
Florida Restaurant Franchise Group, according to its lawsuit, said DMD failed to repay investment funds made available through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which enables foreign investors to earn permanent residence in the United States by investing $500,000 in U.S. projects that create a required number of jobs.
A total of 24 investors invested in Florida Restaurant Franchise Group’s Fund IX, and the fund issued a $12 million secured loan to DMD in 2013. DMD and affiliate PP Omni later purchased land in Broward and Palm Beach counties to develop two Twin Peaks locations, court filings note.
PP Omni sold the strip shopping center in Broward County for $23 million in 2023, which the lawsuit said generated profit to PP Omni and related DMD entities “in excess of $4.5 million.” DMD, however, failed to repay or apply funds from the sale to pay down the promissory note. “The entire principal balance of $12,000,000 remains unpaid,” the suit said.
In September, a judge issued an order for partial summary judgment in favor of Florida Restaurant Franchise Group but did not determine any amounts owed under the promissory note or other alleged damages. DMD, said Flechner, has been working to resolve the situation.
“We got, essentially, a loan from a bunch of Chinese investors about 12 years ago, and for the past year and a half we’ve been trying to work on how to repay them, and what form or fashion and timing and all that,” he said. “And we thought we had a deal a few times, and it was agreed upon and then changed on their end a couple times. And so we kind of reached an impasse. This was, unfortunately, what we had to do to hopefully get a third party to come in and get us to both agree on something.”
The bankruptcy is unrelated to the restaurants’ performance, said Flechner, as he noted DMD’s Twin Peaks “are doing very well,” and the group aims to continue growing with the brand.
“We’ve got the top four performing stores in the system, so we have no reason to not continue to expand. We love the brand. It’s a great brand. It’s a fun brand,” he said. “Right now, unfortunately, this is our focus that we have to deal with. And then once we get this past us, then we’ll be able to continue our growth.”
Twin Peaks, meanwhile, is expected to go public this year as its CEO said the brand’s next milestone is to hit $1 billion in systemwide sales. FAT Brands, which owns Twin Peaks, submitted filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last fall to distribute Twin Peaks shares and take the company public in a combined entity with Smokey Bones. FAT Brands would retain a significant controlling interest.
Twin Peaks has 115 locations in the U.S. and Mexico.
Flechner and Fred Burgess, both attorneys, co-founded DMD in 2012 as a commercial development and hospitality company. It’s also a Papa Johns and Go Mini’s Moving and Portable Storage franchisee, and operates a Candlewood Suites extended-stay hotel. In 2022, DMD Ventures signed a 45-unit deal to develop Big Chicken locations in Florida, but Flechner said the company “moved on from that” and is no longer building those restaurants.