True Food Kitchen Just Closed Both NJ Restaurants in Bankruptcy
True Food Kitchen is done in New Jersey.
The health forward restaurant chain backed by Oprah Winfrey has closed its Edison and Hackensack restaurants after filing for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday. The two New Jersey closings were part of a twelve restaurant cut announced Monday, and they leave the Garden State with no True Food Kitchen at all.
The Edison restaurant was at Menlo Park Mall, 1521B US Route 1. The Hackensack restaurant was at The Shops at Riverside, 390 Hackensack Avenue, Suite 186. Both served their last meals on Sunday, October 4.
That is a rough ending for a brand that showed up here like it planned to own the better for you lane.
Hackensack was the first New Jersey location, opening March 17, 2021, in a 6,628 square foot space with a 1,200 square foot patio. Edison followed on October 17, 2022, with 189 seats, two patio sections, an open kitchen, a private dining room, a separate takeout entrance, and a full bar. These were not tiny test units. They were big, polished, expensive looking rooms built for crowds.
The idea always sounded clean on paper. True Food Kitchen launched in Phoenix in 2008 around the anti inflammatory food philosophy of Dr. Andrew Weil. The menu mixed salads, bowls, burgers, pizzas, seafood, fresh juices, and cocktails in a way that let people feel virtuous without ordering like they were being punished. Edamame dumplings. Tuscan kale salad. Grass fed burgers. Ancient grain bowls. It was wellness with lighting, wood, plants, and a bar program.
Then Oprah entered the picture. Winfrey made a significant equity investment in 2018 and joined the board as the company pushed national growth. That gave True Food something most restaurant chains would kill for: instant trust. If Oprah believed in the kale, plenty of people were willing to at least book a table.
But celebrity backing does not pay a mall lease forever.
According to FOX Business, court documents show True Food entered bankruptcy with about $42.1 million in funded debt and roughly $1.6 million in unrestricted cash. The company's chief restructuring officer pointed to management turnover, changing expansion strategy, brand direction shifts, menu changes, and unsuccessful products and concepts that moved away from the original mission. Pandemic era experiments, including ghost kitchens and a delivery only kitchen, also hurt staffing and service before they were shut down.
The company says 34 restaurants across 14 states remain open. It plans to pursue a court supervised sale and has lined up a commitment for about $20 million in financing from HumanCo TFK IV, subject to court approval. Winfrey remains a minority investor, according to FOX Business, but she no longer has a board representative and is not involved in day to day operations.
For New Jersey, the bigger story is what just went dark.
The Shops at Riverside has spent years trying to feel like Bergen County's polished dining and shopping answer: luxury stores, a dine in movie theater, big name restaurants, and enough valet energy to make a Tuesday feel like an occasion. True Food fit that picture perfectly when it opened. It gave the center a health driven option that still felt like a night out, not a salad errand.
Menlo Park Mall loses a serious footprint too. Edison's True Food was built to handle families, office lunches, shoppers, takeout orders, and people who wanted a cocktail with their grain bowl. When a restaurant that size closes, the hole is obvious. It is not one empty storefront. It is a parking lot corner that suddenly goes quiet.
There is also a colder lesson here. A decade ago, True Food's pitch felt fresh because most big chains were still selling indulgence first and nutrition as an afterthought. Now every fast casual menu has protein bowls, greens, sweet potatoes, salmon, avocado, and a smoothie with a name that sounds like a supplement. The wellness language is everywhere. Once everybody can say it, the brand charging for the full dining room experience has to work much harder.
True Food Kitchen still has a real name, a loyal base, and restaurants open in other states. This is Chapter 11, not a total shutdown. A buyer could keep the concept alive. But in New Jersey, the experiment is over for now: two marquee malls, two big bets, and no locations left standing.