Hardee’s franchisee files Chapter 11, 59 Midwest restaurants face uncertainty

Superior Star LLC filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Kentucky, putting 59 Hardee’s restaurants under a legal process that could reshape shifts, transfers, closures and ownership across the Midwest. The franchisee said its assets and liabilities are each in the $10 million to $50 million range, and the filing appears tied to a dispute over a $7 million seller note from its 2023 purchase of the restaurants from Starcorp LLC.

For workers, Chapter 11 does not automatically mean the lights go off or the doors close. Restaurants can keep operating while the company reorganizes, but payroll, benefits, schedules and even daily staffing can change fast if lenders, landlords or a buyer start pressing for a smaller footprint. In practice, the first signs usually show up on the floor: shorter labor budgets, tighter manager oversight, deferred repairs, fewer hours and more questions than answers about whether a location will stay open, be sold or be folded into another ownership structure.

Superior Star’s filing matters because the operator was not a small one-off. Hardee’s said the franchisee currently runs 59 locations, but Superior Star had once owned 93 restaurants across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee. The company has already closed at least 12 locations over the past year, a warning that the bankruptcy could continue to move store by store rather than all at once.

Hardee’s said it was aware of the filing and described Superior Star’s move as driven by its own specific financial and business circumstances. That kind of language is typical in franchise bankruptcies, where the brand wants to protect the wider system while a local operator’s balance sheet comes apart. For crew members and unit managers, the practical question is less about the parent brand than about whether their store keeps getting food deliveries, repair service and enough labor hours to stay staffed through the week.

The clearest warning signs are the ones workers can see before a court ruling lands: sudden schedule cuts, frozen raises, delayed payroll fixes, new restrictions on overtime, unexplained transfer offers and landlords or vendors suddenly becoming more aggressive about unpaid bills. The last major Hardee’s franchise collapse showed how quickly that can turn into lost work. ARC Burger filed Chapter 7 after closing 77 Hardee’s restaurants, more than 1,600 workers lost shifts, and CKE Restaurants Holdings later reopened 15 former locations and expected to assume ownership of more than 40 more. That is the path employees at Superior Star’s 59 stores are now watching for, one restaurant at a time.