"For children of the 90s Boston Market always seemed like a beacon of homestyle cooking amid a sea of cheap burgers, but that reputation hasn't saved the chain from collapsing in recent years. Founded in 1985 as Boston Chicken in the Massachusetts village of Newtonville, the restaurant was imagined as a healthy, higher-end alternative to normal fast food. In some ways it was on the leading edge of "fast casual" dining, offering something closer to home cooked food but with the speed and prices of fast food."
"The reason for the confusion is because Boston Market is in such dire straits, even its location finder on its website isn't working anymore. Search for one near you and you'll get a list of stores which have all been permanently shuttered. But that mismanagement hints at what killed Boston Market: massive corporate mismanagement."
"Despite struggling for years the chain was purchased by a new owner Jay Pandya in 2020, when it still had over 300 locations. The next year Boston Market began rapidly expanding and experimenting with new menu items, but things went south quickly. Within a year of the sale employees and vendors of Boston Market began suing the company for unpaid wages and bills. Things got so bad New Jersey actually closed Boston Market locations over worker's rights violations."
Boston Market launched in 1985 as Boston Chicken in Newtonville, intended as a healthier, higher-end alternative to typical fast food and an early example of fast-casual dining. The chain expanded rapidly in the 1990s and peaked at about 1,200 locations. Grocery rotisserie competition and earlier financial trouble led to bankruptcy in 1998 and a sale to McDonald's in 2000, followed by later ownership changes. A 2020 purchase by Jay Pandya preceded rapid expansion, unpaid-wage and vendor lawsuits, and location closures for worker-rights violations, leaving the chain with only a handful of active restaurants.
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