Local

NYP Bar and Grill closes, employees left with questions

NYP Bar and Grill, a restaurant chain founded in Washington that has expanded in the last decade, closed last week, and that’s creating confusion for customers and employees – including some who said they still need to be paid.

NYP Bar and Grill has locations in Bellingham, Burlington, Everett, Lynden, Renton and Seattle. On the door of the Seattle location a sign tells people to contact Mike Novak and lists a phone number. But calls and texts from a KIRO 7 reporter to that number were not returned Saturday.

"They didn't actually tell us anything, they kept us in the dark a lot,” employee Shania Brown told KIRO 7. But she knows she’s out of a job.

Novak ran New York Pizza chains around the Sound, and Shania worked at the Burlington location until co-workers called her to tell her not to come in for her shift because NYP was no more.

Brown said she knew the restaurants were struggling after two of her checks bounced.

"I heard it happened to some management too, I don't know why they stayed,” Brown said. “Employees were jumping ship."

The restaurants website and Facebook page said nothing about the sudden closure, but KIRO 7 found NYP filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in April and converted it to chapter 7 on Thursday.

Novakowes the IRS $1.5 million and thousands more to local vendors, according to bankruptcy documents.