Miami-Area Restaurants Seek Bankruptcy Owing $330,000 Rents

Negroni Bistro & Sushi Bar, the local restaurant chain founded by serial global restaurateur Pablo Sartori, filed for bankruptcy for its Brickell and Doral locations, facing over $330,000 in rent claims.

Negroni Brickell LLC and Negroni Doral LLC each petitioned for Chapter 11 reorganization on July 1 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Miami, listing between $1 million and $10 million in both assets and liabilities. The chain’s other South Florida restaurants in Midtown Miami and Weston are not part of the bankruptcies.

The restaurant, which serves a $22 cheeseburger and a $19 grain bowl at its Miami Midtown location, operates more than 20 locations, with locations including Beverly Hills, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, according to its website. It plans to open additional outposts on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, in New York City’s West Village, as well as Tulum, Mexico, and Palma de Mallorca and Barcelona, Spain.

The Brickell restaurant launched less than a year ago and occupies a 4,200-square-foot space on the ground floor of the CitizenM hotel at 955 South Miami Avenue near the heart of Mary Brickell Village. According to its bankruptcy petition, its landlord, CitizenM Miami Brickell Properties LLC, is the largest creditor, with a $274,000 unsecured claim.

The Doral location, which opened more than a year ago in a 6,000-square-foot space at Codina Partners’ Downtown Doral at 5241 Northwest 87th Avenue, listed just over $57,000 owed to Codina.

Jacqueline Calderin, the attorney representing the restaurants, said the companies filed for Chapter 11 to restructure their finances after taking our merchant cash advance loans after the pandemic.

Merchant cash advances provide businesses with upfront cash in exchange for a share of future sales and are commonly used to cover operating costs, such as payroll, rent and inventory.

Calderin said the companies expect to file a reorganization plan in two or three months and emerge from bankruptcy by the fall, before the start of South Florida’s peak hospitality season.

Both locations are open while the restaurants restructure. The CitizenM hotel did not respond to a request for comment, and Codina declined to comment.

Each restaurant’s bankruptcy filing lists several equity holders including LLCs managed by Negroni’s founder and CEO Sartori of Latino Hospitality Group.

Negroni opened its first South Florida restaurant at the Shops at Midtown Miami in 2020, followed by a 5,000-square-foot location at Weston Town Center in 2023.

The restaurant bankruptcy filings come as retail rents remain elevated in some of Miami-Dade’s top submarkets. Asking rents in Brickell were among the highest, ranging from $150 to $200 per square foot in the first quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Brickell has seen a string of restaurant closures this year, including Michelin Guide-recognized Kaori, Major Food Group’s Dirty French and Baby Jane, which said it closed after failed lease negotiations ended its decade-long run.