Charlie Brown's post mortem

Charlie Brown's troubles continued during the week as the parent company closed additional locations and then filed for bankruptcy.

The chain's problems can't be blamed entirely on the current economy. The former president and CEO, Russell D'anton (who had worked his way up from busboy), plead guilty this year to charges involving vendor kickbacks.

In retrospect if the only location (in Kingston NJ) that I patronized was typical it isn't too surprising the chain was in trouble. The building was far larger than needed for the current customer traffic and you would sometimes see clumps of employees standing around doing nothing. Restaurants seem to be a business where it is important to have an owner (or someone else who really cares about the bottom line) around a lot keeping an eye on things. Things seemed a little lackadaisical at the Kingston location.