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The franchise owner of Hawaii’s four Sizzler restaurants has sought bankruptcy protection to settle a dispute with the franchisor of the steakhouse chain.
GoKo Restaurant Enterprises LLC filed a Chapter 11 petition Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu.
The company, which has about 120 employees at the restaurants in Kailua, Aiea, Kapalama and Waipahu, listed assets and debts both in the range of $500,000 to $1 million.
Jerrold Guben, a local attorney representing GoKo, said the bankruptcy case won’t affect daily operations.
"Business is continuing as usual," he said. "People won’t even notice that there’s a Chapter 11 in place at the Sizzlers."
Guben said the restaurant owner has a disagreement with franchisor Sizzler USA and that GoKo sought shelter in bankruptcy court to protect its restaurants from any interruption. Guben said he wasn’t certain about the issue of the dispute, but that he expects it to be settled in court.
Sizzler USA, which franchises or owns nearly 170 restaurants in the United States, was acquired from an Australian company in June 2011 by investors and management. A representative of the firm could not be reached Monday for comment on the bankruptcy.
GoKo was formed in 2003 by one-time Sizzler manager Clinton Goo and real estate developer Bert A. Kobayashi, who partnered to buy the four restaurants from the local Sallee family who established the chain in Hawaii in 1964, six years after the first Sizzler was founded in California.
The Sallee family had sold its Hawaii Sizzler restaurants in 1977 to Jolly Roger Hawaii but reacquired the restaurants in 1997 after Jolly Roger filed bankruptcy.
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