01
MCA-trapped, still open
You are current enough to keep the doors open, but merchant cash advances, daily remits, or stacked advances are eating the cash. You need triage before the next payment hits.
Simone Labs LLC
You’re still open. Or you’re not sure you should be. Either way, the numbers need a clear look.
Distressed Restaurant Advisors helps independent restaurant owners who are stuck in merchant cash advances, watching the business slowly decline, or already deciding whether to close. We organize the numbers, explain the options, and help you prepare for the conversations that come next — with your attorney, CPA, or broker.
Credibility
Lived from the operator’s side — not a slide deck.
This practice sits under Simone Labs LLC. It is led by someone who has lived restaurant distress from the operator’s side: an independent restaurant Chris operates filed Chapter 11 twice historically — once in 2008, and again around 2013 to refinance that same 2008 plan. Both of those reorganizations paid every creditor in full.
Every competing firm (CR3, BDO, Gilkey, Blackwood) delivers a report and leaves the owner to implement it. Chris has already built and runs live AI tooling for that restaurant (voice ordering, automated marketing, an AI back-office) — DRA can hand a struggling owner both the diagnosis and the automated fix. Together, the credibility story and the build capability are what no incumbent in this market can match.
We do not sell “we survived bankruptcy.” We sell plain accounting of what happened before, and practical help for owners who need the same kind of clarity — including the option to build the automated fix, not only diagnose it.
The book
The Distressed Restaurant Handbook
Debt, Cash Flow, and the Decisions Nobody Prepared You For — A Survival Guide for Independent Restaurant Owners
It’s 1 a.m., the restaurant is closed, and you’re doing math in your head that doesn’t work. Nobody prepares restaurant owners for this part. This book does.
Chris Simone has owned an independent pizzeria with his family since 2003 — through the 2008 crash, the Great Recession, a pandemic, and Chapter 11 reorganizations that ended with every creditor paid in full. This is the book he needed twenty years ago: the mechanics of restaurant distress, explained plainly by someone who has lived every page.
This book explains; it doesn’t give legal or financial advice. Its job is to make you the most informed, most organized, least ashamed owner in the room — while you still have options.
Here it is — thank you.
Grab whichever format you read in. Both are the complete handbook.
Who this is for
Independent restaurant owners in one of three overlapping situations
02
Slow decline
Sales are soft, labor and food costs are off, vendors are stretching, and the books are behind. Nothing has collapsed yet — but the trend is clear and you want a plan before it does.
03
Already deciding to close
You are weighing sell, liquidate, or bankruptcy options. You need the records packaged, the debt picture clear, and a briefing you can take to licensed professionals — not a sales pitch to keep going at all costs.
If you are looking for ads, SEO tricks, or a miracle turnaround promise, this is not that site. If a warm referral sent you here to look Chris up, this is the front door.
Service menu
Scoped work after a clear diagnostic
Three service groups. Diagnostic first — then only the work that fits.
Numbers & operations
Get the books and costs honest
- QuickBooks cleanup
- Menu analysis and pricing
- Food and labor cost calibration
- Staffing and scheduling audit
- POS data audit (Toast, Square, Clover)
- Third-party delivery economics
Debt & tax crisis
Triage pressure without false promises
- MCA triage and explainer
- Sales tax issues and tax warrants (we explain and organize only; filing and negotiation go to your CPA or tax counsel)
- Overdrawn account / cash-flow spiral triage
- Vendor payment plan structuring
Exit & recovery
Prepare the next conversation
- Valuation (debt-free vs as-is)
- Recovery plan
- Sell vs liquidate vs bankruptcy options briefing (explained, not advised — every filing or creditor strategy question ends in referral to an attorney, broker, or CPA)
- Financial records packaged for your attorney
We explain options. We do not tell you that you should file. We do not prepare petitions. We do not represent you with creditors or courts.
Signature differentiator
AI and operations automation
Implementing the same tooling Chris has built and runs live: AI phone/voice ordering, automated marketing (review replies, new-mover outreach), an AI back-office for email and bookkeeping, staffing/scheduling automation.
Diagnose-and-build, not diagnose-and-leave.
Priced separately from flat-fee audits — custom-scoped per engagement like a Simone Labs build, not part of the $1,000–2,500 diagnostic bundle band.
How it works
Diagnostic first. Scoped work after.
01
Diagnostic session
60–90 minutes. We review where you are, what the books show, what the debt and tax picture looks like, and which service group fits. You leave with a clearer map and a scoped proposal for any follow-on work — or a clean referral if what you need is legal, tax, or brokerage help we do not provide.
02
Pricing sketch
$250–400 flat
Depends on complexity and materials you can share in advance. Follow-on work is scoped after the session, with a written outline of what is included and what is referred out.
Book a diagnostic call
Prefer to talk first? Grab a slot on Chris’s calendar. Or tell us which of the three situations fits via the intake form — we review submissions and reply with next steps. No pressure pitch. No automated sales sequence.
Insights / Resources
Plain reads on the pressure points
Short explainers for owners stuck in tax warrants, MCA daily pulls, or the sell / close / reorganize decision — without the sales pitch. Each one is a chapter of the handbook, free to read here.
01
What a Sales Tax Warrant Actually Means for Your Restaurant (And What Happens Next)
A warrant is a civil action, not a criminal one — but it attaches to assets and does not go away on its own.
Read article →
02
The Real Math Behind a Merchant Cash Advance (And Why It Feels Impossible to Escape)
Factor rates hide 60–150%+ effective cost, and the daily pull is what actually breaks cash flow.
Read article →
03
Sell, Close, or Reorganize? A Framework for What’s Next
When the numbers stop being an operating problem and start being a decision problem.
Read article →
04
What Third-Party Delivery Actually Costs You (Hint: It Isn’t the Commission Rate)
Commission is only the first line — ads and funded discounts can push take rate near half.
Read article →
05
Raising Prices Without Losing Your Customers (What the Numbers Actually Show)
Week two looks like a disaster. Six weeks later is usually the real answer.
Read article →
06
What Your POS Is Hiding (And Why Your Numbers Might Be Wrong)
Tips folded into net sales turned a +2% year into a reported +13%. Check your reports before you act on them.
Read article →
07
Your Labor Percentage Is Probably Lying to You
A reported 29.82% against a 28% target. The real number was 24.8%, and nothing about the staffing had changed.
Read article →
08
How to Read Your P&L When You’re Scared of It
Five numbers, in order, in fifteen minutes — including the one that separates a broken business from broken debt.
Read article →
09
When Payroll Tax Gets Personal
The corporate shield does not apply and it generally survives bankruptcy. The quiet creditor is the one that follows you home.
Read article →
10
Talk to Your Landlord Before You’re Behind
The creditor with the most concrete reason to deal — if you get there before the rent is late.
Read article →
11
The Labor Lever Nobody Talks About: Automation That Doesn’t Cut Service
The fourth option, when the choices are framed as raise prices, cut people, or close.
Read article →
12
What Your Restaurant Is Actually Worth
Three numbers, not one — going concern, asset floor, and the buyer who already knows your block.
Read article →
13
What a Restaurant Bankruptcy Actually Looks Like From the Inside
The owner keeps the keys. A plain description of a process most owners badly misunderstand.
Read article →
Intake
Diagnostic intake
This isn’t a credit application and it isn’t legal advice.
It’s a short set of questions so Chris can walk into a diagnostic call already oriented — instead of making you re-explain the whole mess cold. Answer what’s true today. Approximate is fine. Nothing here files anything, commits you to anything, or shows up on a credit report.
Roughly 3–4 minutes. Prefer to skip ahead? Book a time on the calendar.
Got it — thank you.
Chris will review what you shared and follow up to book a short diagnostic call.
On that call he’ll confirm the picture (cash pressure, financing load, timeline) and outline sensible next-step options for your situation — not a generic checklist.
Nothing you submitted files anything, starts any legal process, or locks you into working with us.
If something is time-critical in the next 48 hours (payroll, lockout risk, tax deadline), reply to the confirmation email or call/text the number we’ll include — put URGENT in the subject or first line so it gets pulled forward.
What happens next
- Confirmation email lands in your inbox.
- Chris reviews your intake (usually within 1 business day).
- You get a link or reply to book the diagnostic call.
- Come with whatever numbers you have — estimates are fine.
You’re not alone in this, and asking for a clear read is not failure — it’s how owners get their footing back.