Bloated, fraying, Eatertainment Grotesque, Planet Hollywood International Inc., said Monday it lost its shareholders more than their lunch, more than $225 million in the last three months of 1998 alone. Then they said they wouldn't pay off legal debts of $25mm which come due this week.

Same store sales fell 19% in the last quarter, which means customers are staying away in droves, and now the only people lining up at the front door are creditors.

President William Baumhauer said the Orlando-based will still succeed - as long as lenders don't want their money back anytime soon. "We're not broke," Baumhauer said, but let on that the company might end up operating under bankruptcy protection. "Even if we go into Chapter 11, people here will still have jobs and we will have revenue."

The company's Orlando headquarters building will be sold, and it would like to divest some of its less well-known eatertainment 'concepts', including the All Star Cafes and Sound Republics. But so far the company has failed to conclude any deals.

We have been longtime critics of this terrible place. The food is bad and the whole thing ham-fistedly preprogrammed. And Planet Hollywood seems now just the latest in the growing list of Eatertainment crash and burns. [04/04/1999]

February 10, 2012