Boston Market In Danbury Quietly Shutters Amidst Corporate Struggle

DANBURY, CT — The Boston Market on Newtown Road in Danbury has quietly vacated its premises in the Plumtrees Plaza.

The rotisserie chicken mavens were evicted from the Newtown Road shopping center a few months ago after failing to pay rent, according to documents filed in state Superior Court in Danbury by the landlord, Plumtrees Plaza, LLC, one of The Hawley Companies.

The restaurant was in arrears $62,197 as of June 29, according to the filing. The landlord served notice on the eatery on May 12, ordering eviction by May 18.

According to an August 2023 article in industry trade publication Nation's Restaurant News, "Boston Market is staring down a growing pile of lawsuits from unpaid vendors and former employees."

In New Jersey, PBS reported the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development ordered the shuttering there of 27 Boston Market locations after the chain had accrued more than $2.5 million in back damages, fees and penalties, including more than $600,000 in back wages owed to 314 workers. The sites came back a month later, after workers received the money they were owed.

And neither were the C-suites spared the pain: The company’s headquarters in Golden, CO and three other Colorado locations were seized in May for over $328,500 in unpaid sales and payroll taxes that had been accumulating for about a year, The Denver Post reported.

Before Sun Capital Partners sold Boston Market to the Rohan Group of Companies' Engage Brands in 2020, the fast food chain was undergoing a brand metamorphosis meant to staunch the bleeding.

The fall has been tortuous. The company was founded in 1985 as Boston Chicken, and its bird-with-all-the-fixings menu rode an early wave of popularity, before filing for bankruptcy in 1998. Then it was purchased by McDonald's, who sold it to Sun.

The Boston Market Corporation website still lists the Danbury restaurant under its list of stores.