A Denny's franchisee has abruptly shuttered every one of its restaurants across Minnesota and Wisconsin, terminating waitresses, cooks and other staff on September 3 with no advance warning. The company, M15 Inc., told employees it lacked the revenue and cash needed to keep the restaurants running amid collection activity from its lenders, and it now plans to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The closures hit Denny's locations in Burnsville, Maplewood, Roseville and North Branch, Minnesota, along with a Hudson, Wisconsin restaurant, according to Bring Me The News. The former Burnsville restaurant sat at 12950 Aldrich Ave. S., and all of the shuttered locations have since vanished from Denny's own website. M15 Inc. notified employees of the closures on September 2, just a day before the doors closed for good.
The outlet reports that M15 Inc. had borrowed substantial amounts of money over the past year and ultimately could not meet payroll, cover food and supply purchases, or keep its restaurants operating responsibly. The company said it will provide additional information about the anticipated bankruptcy process as it moves forward.
Regulars Left Without Their Morning Spot
For the Maplewood location, the closure on September 4 left waitresses, cooks and other staff without income overnight, per the same account. Denny's staff there reportedly knew many of their customers by name and looked after regulars who came in daily for breakfast, a routine now gone along with their jobs.
Travis Eaton, whose mother had operated the Maplewood Denny's for more than 40 years before it closed suddenly, created a GoFundMe page to support the former employees. Eaton said the restaurant's abrupt end followed decades of steady operation, and the terminated workers are now searching for new jobs with no severance or notice period behind them.
Minnesota's Denny's Footprint Shrinks Sharply
Only a handful of Denny's locations remain open across the state now. Apple Valley, Blaine, Bloomington, Rochester, Rogers, St. Paul, West St. Paul and Otsego are still listed as operating, according to the company's own website. That is down from roughly a dozen Minnesota locations open earlier this year, according to Patch, marking a steep contraction in the chain's presence in the state within a matter of months.
Store Closure Watch tracking data found that seven Denny's locations nationwide were delisted from the company's online locator in the single week spanning August 29 through September 5, with five of them in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market alone. The site notes that locator delistings are often the first public trace of a restaurant shutdown, surfacing before any official announcement or news coverage catches up.
A Franchisee Squeeze Playing Out Nationwide
M15 Inc. had operated as a family-owned franchise business managing roughly a dozen Denny's diners across Minnesota, Wisconsin and California before accumulating unsustainable lender debt, according to information published by the company. Its collapse comes against the backdrop of sweeping change at the corporate level: Denny's Corp. was acquired for approximately $620 million in an all-cash deal in January and taken private by a consortium including TriArtisan Capital Advisors, Treville Capital Group and franchisee Yadav Enterprises, Patch reported, a move intended to give franchisees more capital flexibility.
Even so, corporate Denny's had just wrapped a multi-year pruning effort, shuttering 88 restaurants in 2024 and another 70 to 90 locations in 2025 as it targeted mature restaurants averaging under $1.1 million in annual sales, per Business Insider. National Restaurant Association data cited by retail analysts points to a broader squeeze on full-service family dining chains, with inflation-driven menu prices coinciding with slumping customer foot traffic, leaving lower-volume operators struggling against fixed debt obligations.
M15 Inc.'s bankruptcy plans fit a pattern seen elsewhere in the Denny's system. Franchisees in California, Texas, Ohio and Florida have entered Chapter 11 or Chapter 7 proceedings between 2023 and 2026 amid similar debt-service and traffic pressures, according to TheStreet, a trend Hoodline previously traced to a Point Loma closure earlier this year.
What Terminated Workers Are Owed
Minnesota law offers some protection for the terminated employees. Under Minnesota Statute § 181.13, when an employer discharges a worker, all earned and unpaid wages become due immediately upon written demand, and an employer that fails to pay within 24 hours can face daily statutory wage penalties for up to 15 days. A formal written demand from the worker is required to start that 24-hour clock.
Separately, Minnesota Statute § 181.93 requires employers to immediately notify all employees in writing if the company files for bankruptcy, with noncompliance treated as a misdemeanor under state law. Under federal bankruptcy law, back-pay damages tied to abrupt mass layoffs conducted without the 60-day notice required by the federal WARN Act are treated as priority wage claims up to statutory limits, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. It remains to be seen whether former M15 Inc. workers will pursue wage penalty claims or whether the company will formally file its Chapter 7 petition in federal bankruptcy court.
