Salad and Go, the Arizona-born chain that turned the drive-thru lane into a salad line, is going out of business entirely. The company announced Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and that every one of its 70 remaining drive-thrus in Arizona and Nevada is closing permanently. The company says Wednesday, Aug. 5, is the final day of guest service — after that, the windows shut for good.
This is the whole chain, not another round of trimming. Of the 70 locations, 63 are in Arizona and seven are in the Las Vegas Valley.
At a glance
- Salad and Go announced Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy court in Houston.
- All 70 remaining drive-thrus — 63 in Arizona, seven in the Las Vegas Valley — are closing for good.
- The company says Wednesday, Aug. 5, is the final day of guest service.
- No buyer, asset sale or reopening has been announced.
What the company said
Chapter 11 is the chapter companies usually use to reorganize and keep operating, but that is not what it means here. As Salad and Go describes it, the court-supervised process is a way to get value out of its assets and settle its obligations in an orderly manner while the business winds down.
In its statement, the company said it was unable to overcome “sustained pressure on consumer demand, past strategic growth challenges and rising costs” — the kind of phrasing corporate announcements reach for, and as close to an explanation as the statement gets. Chief executive Mike Tattersfield put the ending in his own words: “This is a painful day for everyone who built, worked for and loved Salad and Go.”
The statement also brought up a Cyclospora outbreak in July — a parasite illness traced to shredded iceberg lettuce recalled by the supplier Taylor Farms de Mexico. Salad and Go was not implicated in that outbreak, and the company said it did not use shredded iceberg lettuce or buy from that supplier. Its point was about the fallout: in the company’s telling, the scare weakened confidence across the whole restaurant industry and became one more weight on a business already struggling — not the reason the business is shutting down.
A fast rise, then a retreat that took less than a year
Salad and Go opened in the Phoenix area in 2013, built around a simple idea: fresh salads, sold cheap, through a drive-thru window. At its peak the chain ran more than 140 locations across Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Oklahoma.
Founders Tony and Roushan Christofellis sold the company to a private-equity investor in 2021 and stepped down, reportedly amid disagreements over growth strategy; they have had no role in running the chain since. In a statement, they said that watching “the company announce the closing of its remaining locations is heartbreaking.” They now run a separate Arizona drive-thru restaurant business, which they say is not affected by the closure.
The chain had already been shrinking. Texas and Oklahoma went first — 41 stores in September 2025, then the last 32 in January 2026, when the company also gave up a commissary, the central kitchen that prepares food for a chain’s stores, and moved its headquarters back to Arizona. What remained was home ground: the Arizona and Nevada drive-thrus, the 70 stores now closing.
The questions still hanging
The announcement did not say how many employees are losing their jobs or what will happen to them.
Customers have also been asking publicly about gift cards and rewards balances, and the company has not announced a redemption or refund policy for them either.
What is not in doubt is the ending itself: after the final day of guest service that the company has announced, a chain that spent 13 years selling salads through car windows will have no windows left open.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a reorganization, or is Salad and Go shutting down completely?
It’s a full shutdown. The company filed Chapter 11, but by its own description that filing is meant to wind the business down in an orderly way, not to keep it running. No buyer, asset sale or reopening has been announced.
Did the Cyclospora outbreak cause the bankruptcy?
No. Salad and Go was not implicated in that outbreak, and the company said it did not use shredded iceberg lettuce or buy from the supplier behind the recall. The company frames the outbreak as one more pressure on an already struggling industry, not the reason it is shutting down.