Restaurant entrepreneur and celebrity chef Akseli Herlevi has filed for bankruptcy of his company Naughty BRGR Oy.
Akseli Herlev’s group has many types of business. The bankruptcy concerns three hamburger restaurants. Eeva Paljakka
Restaurant entrepreneur and celebrity chef Akseli Herlevi has filed for bankruptcy of his company Naughty BRGR Oy today, Wednesday, Iltalehti is told by the Helsinki district court.
This is the company through which Herlevi has run the business of his hamburger restaurants. The bankruptcy concerns three restaurants. Two of them are located in Helsinki and the third in Pirkkala.
There are a total of seven Naughty BRGR restaurants and four of them operate on a franchise basis. The bankruptcy does not apply to these restaurants. Two of them are located in Helsinki, the others in Pirkkala, Jyväskylä, Oulu, Tampere and Seinäjoki. Some of the Naughty BRGR restaurants are Franchise businesses.
Akseli Herlevi told Kauppalehtithat the company was still trying to find an alternative to bankruptcy in the days between Christmas.
– We tried to do a subscription rights issue, but we couldn’t raise enough funds to continue. It became concrete that bankruptcy will happen and nothing can be done. The fact is that with boots on, you go upside down, even if all the stones were turned over,” Herlevi told Kauppalehte.
– Many mistakes have been made. I don’t want to deny it, he says.
He counts as mistakes, for example, growing the activity too quickly. Expenses grew too much before the restaurants’ income caught up.
Herlevi told Iltalehti about the difficulties and losses in business operations in May. Street Food Group Oyj, the parent company of Herlev’s companies, made a loss in the financial period from January 1 to December 31, 2023. The turnover of the entire group was 10.7 million euros. An operating loss of 189,000 euros was accumulated and there were difficulties especially in restaurant operations.
Akseli Herlevi estimated for Iltalehte in May that the reason for the decreased demand for restaurants was the war after the corona pandemic, as well as the general rise in price levels.
– It’s been hellishly difficult, Herlevi stated directly.
– People have less money to spend on restaurants, he continued.
Iltalehti has so far not reached Akseli Herlevi to comment on the bankruptcy.