The proprietor of five Bareburger locations around Manhattan, currently in a bitter dispute with Bareburger over claims the company tanked his business on cause to take it over, filed for bankruptcy on his fourth area—months after submitting for 3 others, court docket documents indicate.
Michael Pitsinos—who reportedly dropped $10 million to open the Bareburgers beginning in 2011—filed for Chapter 11 on Sunday for his Midtown East Bareburger outpost at 251 East 52nd Street among Second and Third Avenues with nearly $270,000 in debt, in line with the filing acquired via Nationwide Research Company.
Pitsinos blames his present-day financial ruin filing on Bareburger’s plans to file a hallmark infringement against him to put him “absolutely out of commercial enterprise” by using “reducing off any coins glide to permit [Pitsinos] to pay [his] lenders,” according to the courtroom report.
“The whole trademark aspect is a form of ridiculous from our point of view,” Pitsinos’ legal professional, George Sitaras, instructed Commercial Observer. “It’s a tactic in our view to essentially pressure us to close the eating places truely.”
Sitaras referred to as the infringement “ironic” because a decision ruled that a choose previously dominated against Bareburger executives for trademark violation in 2015. Five of Bareburger’s founders created a separate enterprise, Bareburger Group, without telling companion John Stavroulakis or competently compensating him for his share, The New York Post said.
“They have been promoting us something they don’t make personal,” Sitaras said.
A spokesperson for Bareburger and its legal professional, John Harry Gionis, did now not at once respond to a request for remark.
The bankruptcy on the 251 East 52nd Street place is the trendy submitting in the acrimonious divorce between Pitsinos and Bareburger that commenced in advance this yr.
In January, Pitsinos filed for Chapter 11 for three of his other Bareburger outposts at 153 Eighth Avenue, which opened in 2011, 795 Columbus Avenue, which opened in 2015 and 111 Fulton Street, which opened in 2015, the Post mentioned. Pitsinos claimed that once Bareburger took over operations at those places years ago, it deliberately ran the eating places “into the ground by using intentionally failing to pay vital fees” together with food suppliers, hire and payroll taxes, in step with court files.
Bareburger CEO Euripides Pelekanos contended the commercial enterprise issues had been solely Pitsinos’ fault and the franchises had extra than $three million in debt when Bareburger took them over, Eater New York stated. Pitsinos’ authentic partners have filed a fit towards him over his alleged poor control.
The fit against Pitsinos accuses him of taking revenue for himself and charging charges instead of paying kingdom and federal taxes while loaning as much as $seven-hundred,000 of the restaurants’ money without permission, consistent with Eater.
Since the legal battles commenced, Pitsinos and Bareburger were running to “de-emblem” his five locations, the alternative at 103 West 14th Street, however Pitsinos claims Bareburger changed into “nitpicking over the littlest information to make it as hard as feasible,” court docket files show. Despite this, Pitsinos said Bareburger felt the system became going “too slow.”