What Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Means for Cowboy Ciao, Kazimierz and Peter Kasperski

By Nikki Buchanan Thu., Jul. 12 2012 at 7:00 AM

Categories: Buchanan, News

New Times

Cowboy Ciao in Old Town

See also: Cowboy Chow files for Bankruptcy
See also: Cowboy Ciao's Marianne Belardi Says Goodbye After Fifteen Years

Chow Bella reported last week that Peter Kasperski of Cowboy Ciao and Kazimierz World Wine Bar filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy under Cowboy Ciao LLC on June 29th.

In the comment section of that post, readers expressed concern that Cowboy Ciao or Kazimierz World Wine Bar might be closing. We caught up with Kasperski recently to see how things were going and to ask him to clarify what a Chapter 11 means for his businesses. Things are not nearly as bleak as you might imagine. Here's what he had to say:

Kasperksi said:

It's interesting that a number of people seem to think that bankruptcy means you're closed. It doesn't. It means we filed for reorganization and bought some time to do exactly that: reorganize. We think we'll get our numbers straight and get our debts all lined up and fixed.

Everybody files Chapter 11 for different reasons. Ours was to get some time and come out of this later in the year. Hopefully, everything will go exactly as we're planning.

In the meantime, it's business as usual for us. We're tightening our belts on certain things. Otherwise, we're not changing how we operate or what we do in both places.

We're sticking this out. I feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of winners, and we're going to thrive our way through this and go forward.

Kasperski went on to explain that much of his debt is simply fallout from the failure of the Southbridge Project, where he planned to open three vastly different concepts: Mexican Standoff, Shell Shock and Confection. His LLC has already taken care of a great portion of the debt from that debacle; the reorganization will give the company time to take care of the rest of it.

Kasperski added that Cowboy Ciao's numbers were fantastic last year and that the restaurant set a 15-year record for business. Meanwhile, the numbers at Kazimierz have gone up for two years in a row.

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