Longtime Miracle Mile eatery files for bankruptcy
Published: 01-14-2025 4:01 PM
Modified: 01-20-2025 1:55 PM |
LEBANON — Mounting financial troubles have forced the owners of Gusanoz Mexican restaurant, located on the Miracle Mile, to shutter two related restaurants and file for bankruptcy, in a move that impacts both employees and a South Royalton nonprofit that depended on one of the restaurants for a significant share of its business.
The restaurant’s LLC, MYA POS Services, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in United States Bankruptcy Court in Concord last week. The LLC reported estimated assets of between $0 and $50,000, and estimated liabilities over $1 million, according to the voluntary petition submitted to the court on Tuesday, Jan. 7.
Gusanoz, owned by husband and wife team Nick Yager and Maria Limon, first opened in 2005.
Yager and Limon have operated a series of food enterprises in the Upper Valley, including an ice cream parlor and a branch of Gusanoz in Woodstock. The flagship Gusanoz on Miracle Mile is the only one that remains open.
Yager said in a phone interview on Friday that he intends to keep the Lebanon Gusanoz running, taking advantage of the bankruptcy to reorganize the company’s debt, in order that the restaurant can continue “for another 20 years.”
Two related restaurants financed by Yager and Limon have gotten caught up in the financial storm. The Gusanoz location in Enfield closed in December, after operating at reduced hours for several weeks.
The day after Gusanoz’s bankruptcy filing, Eddie Moran, the couple’s son, announced on social media that he was closing Lalo’s, the taqueria that he opened in 2020 on the Lebanon Mall.
The Enfield Gusanoz, owned by Yager and Limon through NIMA Holdings LLC , currently owes more than $24,000 in property, sewer and water taxes.
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In May, the property was listed for sale for $1.1 million, according to selling agent Vanessa Stone Real Estate.
The couple purchased the Enfield location from Darby and Mickey Dowd, long-time owners of Mickey’s Roadside Cafe on Route 4A, in 2021.
“For three and a half years we worked to make Enfield a viable business … but we were never able to,” Yager said in the interview.
“It’s a decision that impacts dozens of people,” he added.
Gusanoz has been helping to finance Lalo’s for the past four years, Yager said.
Labor costs, in addition to rising food costs, had made Lalo’s unsustainable.
“In the end, I would have had to run the next year or two at significantly lower food and labor costs… to keep the banks happy,” said Moran the night Lalo’s closed.
Keeping Lalo’s open would have involved raising — perhaps even doubling — menu prices, which undermined the vision Moran had for the menu since its days as a food truck back in 2017.
“I get that people would pay (higher) prices, but my core thing from the food truck is that I love the idea that the locals could come in … with a ziplock bag of quarters and they could buy a taco,” he said.
At the time of closing, empanadas, and street style tacos — stuffed with chicken, carnitas or beans — cost $4. Beef and pork belly (a customer favorite) cost an extra dollar.
All of the taqueria’s tortillas were made with masa from Moon and Stars, a South Royalton-based nonprofit and kitchen. Lalo’s made up “at least half” of Moon and Stars’ income, said the nonprofit’s creator, Nando Jaramillo.
“I feel really bad. He was our main client. I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
The nonprofit was shifting its focus towards securing grants for its educational programming, Jaramillo added.
Yager cited rising costs as a major factor in pushing Gusanoz into insolvency.
Inflation has hit all business and households, but those in the restaurant sector have been particularly affected.
Upper Valley Produce, a local food purveyor that distributes to states throughout New England, has observed a 25% to 30% increase in food costs in the past year and a half, according to co-owner James Gordon.
The company is one of the creditors listed in the Gusanoz bankruptcy. Gordon declined to comment on the case.
Lalo’s and the Enfield Gusanoz are not the only restaurants in the area that have been forced to close in recent years.
Piecemeal Pies, the British-inspired lunch spot in White River Junction, filed for bankruptcy and closed in 2023, prompting losses for 36 individuals who had invested in the enterprise.
MYA POS Services’ creditors, meanwhile, are predominantly out-of-state banks and loan companies. 38 creditors appear on the mailing list of creditors attached to the voluntary petition.
All former employees of the Enfield Gusanoz and Lalo’s — about eight to 10 at both establishments — have been offered new employment at the Lebanon Gusanoz, Yager and Moran said.
“This place is definitely home,” said 20-year-old Shondrea Moulton, an employee at Lalo’s for the past 3 years. “I’m very blessed that I got to be a part of its closing.”
After the restaurant posted on social media around 2 p.m. that it would be shutting its doors that night, word started to travel, with many regulars anxious to savor one last taco. By 5:45 p.m, there was a line to the door and a one-hour wait for food.
One customer, Lebanon High School student Meg Cheevers, 17, had eaten at Lalo’s the day before, only to come back when she heard it was closing. She called the news “a tragedy.”
Graham Knight, a regular since he moved to Lebanon to work at Dartmouth College in 2021, said the closure was “soul crushing.” He recited his standard order (three chicken street tacos with habanero) like it was his phone number.
By 6:45 p.m, Moran announced from the small, open-plan kitchen that the restaurant was out of food.
In lieu of tacos, two Dartmouth medical residents asked a Valley News reporter to take a photo of them under the taqueria’s outdoor sign — a crimson rooster — to mark the somber occasion.
Despite closing Lalo’s, Moran does not plan on leaving the business for good. After taking some time off, he’s open to bringing back the taco truck, he said.
The restaurant even advertised on its social media that it would be available for “catering and smaller private events,” as of last weekend.
Marion Umpleby can be reached at mumpleby@vnews.com.