7 Brew Wins Court Approval for $123 Million Buy of 63 Former Salad and Go Drive-Thrus

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court on September 29 approved 7 Brew's $123.45 million bid for 63 drive-thru location leases once operated by Salad and Go, according to Restaurant Dive. The leases break down as 36 in Arizona, 19 in Texas, 3 in Nevada and 5 in Oklahoma, handing the Rogers, Arkansas-based coffee chain a built-out footprint in markets where it already competes for the daily commuter run. The sale closed out a Chapter 11 case that Salad and Go filed on August 4, and the deal grew substantially from where it started: Dutch Bros had an initial agreement to pay $105 million for 51 of the sites before 7 Brew forced a competitive auction.

7 Brew opened its first stand in Rogers in 2017 and has spent the years since turning double-lane drive-thru coffee into one of the fastest-growing formats in restaurant real estate. Blackstone Growth took a stake in the company in early 2024, when 7 Brew had just cleared 190 locations, and the brand has since scaled past 800 units across 38 states. Company leadership has talked openly about a 1,000-unit target, and the Salad and Go leases give it a shortcut: sites that already have the stacking lanes, canopy structures and drive-up windows that make or break a coffee stand's throughput, in states the chain has already proven out.

The path to Monday's approval ran through a real auction, not a rubber stamp. Dutch Bros' original $105 million deal for 51 locations became the floor bid once Salad and Go's advisers built in what bankruptcy lawyers call a fiduciary out, a clause that let the debtor keep shopping the assets even after signing an agreement. When 7 Brew showed up with a higher number, the case went to a competitive auction on September 1 that produced a winning bid of $143.2 million for 73 sites, with Dutch Bros staying on as backup bidder. By the time the court signed off nearly four weeks later, the final package had narrowed to 63 leases at $123.45 million, a gap that points to some sites falling out during diligence or landlord consent issues rather than any change in 7 Brew's appetite for the deal.

Salad and Go opened its first location in Gilbert, Arizona in 2013 and built a reputation on a stripped-down, drive-thru-only salad concept that briefly grew to 146 locations. The expansion outran the business, and the company had already pulled back to roughly 70 restaurants, exiting Texas and Oklahoma and consolidating around Arizona and Nevada, before filing for Chapter 11 protection in early August. What makes the outcome notable to restructuring lawyers is that unsecured creditors, who were owed roughly $50 million, are being paid in full, an unusual result for a retail bankruptcy of this size. Omar Alaniz, the Reed Smith partner who led the legal team on the sale, put it this way: "This case shows what is possible when you approach a restructuring with creativity and a relentless focus on maximizing value for all stakeholders."

Worth watching: For retail real estate professionals, the deal is a reminder of how fungible small-footprint drive-thru pads have become across concepts. A site built for a salad chain's double drive-thru translates almost directly to a coffee stand's, and landlords who might have faced dark boxes instead kept their spaces occupied without a re-tenanting search. It's also a leasehold transaction rather than a fee sale, so the real work for 7 Brew's real estate team now shifts to assignment consents and any co-tenancy or use clauses buried in the original Salad and Go leases. The geographic concentration is worth flagging too: adding 36 Arizona and 19 Texas sites in one swing gives 7 Brew meaningful infill density in two of the hottest Sunbelt QSR markets, the kind of scale that can shift a brand from "expanding" to "established" almost overnight. And with retail and restaurant Chapter 11 filings running elevated this year, this case, where a fiduciary-out clause and a real auction nearly doubled the initial offer, is a template other distressed-chain landlords and creditors will likely point to going forward.