A Healthy Burger Chain On The East Coast Is Closing All Their Restaurants

It seems like every day for the past few years news has broken about different beloved restaurant chains facing bankruptcy. The Daily Mail reported that another popular southern health-based burger joint called Evos abruptly announced it would be closing all three of the last remaining locations in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. However, unlike many other restaurant chains that have closed in recent years, it appears as though Evos is not doing this because the company has gone bankrupt. There is nothing to suggest it filed for bankruptcy before officially announcing the closings. Instead, it's likely due to declining sales numbers over a period of time.

Evos was widely known as a healthier alternative burger restaurant compared to fast food giants like Burger King, Wendy's, Five Guys, and McDonald's. However, it was much smaller in size to those aforementioned chains, which may have contributed to its dwindling success over time. It's also worth noting that generally speaking, customers of the healthy burger spot seem to largely be feeling indifferent or otherwise showing little signs of disappointment upon hearing that after 31 years of operation Evos is closing forever. Seeing as this is the case, customer sentiment may have also played a large role in the restaurant's decision to entirely end its operations.

A concrete reason as to why the healthy burger chain officially closed has not been made clear. That said, some time after 2005, when the business was still booming, the restaurant chain had expanded outside of Florida by opening multiple locations in North Carolina and Georgia. However, by 2015 many locations in North Carolina in particular began to close down. Also, it only took one year after opening for an Atlanta Evos location in particular to close its doors for good back in 2010.

This being the case, it appears as though Evos has been struggling to maintain loyalty for a long time. After all, its only remaining locations up until this point were solely based in Florida, where the company initially originated back in 1994. As of information acquired from ratings on Yelp, it appears as though customers generally weren't too impressed with Evos' food quality. The South Tampa location only had 3.6 stars, the long-closed Atlanta location only had 3.1 stars, and the permanently closed Chapel Hill, North Carolina location only had 3.3 stars. Knowing this, it appears as though customer sentiment, which in turn likely led to declining sales numbers, may have played a pretty significant role in Evos' decision to permanently close for good. However, it is possible that there were a multitude of other factors at play.

In a nation full of unhealthy fast food and burger chains, Evos was a refreshing, healthier alternative. According to the official Evos website, what made their burgers healthier is that instead of deep frying them, they did something called "airbaking" to cook the burgers. For those unfamiliar with the term, the burgers were baked instead of fried in unhealthy oils. Outside of this, Evos only used "humanely and naturally raised beef and chicken," as well as organic ingredients for other food products. All of these factors allowed the company's food products to have significantly less fat content compared to other fast food chains.

The company also states that even its "packaging is made with sustainable materials" and it even used recycled credit cards to produce gift cards for the restaurant. Speaking of which, the restaurant locations themselves, as according to Evos, were built with "sustainable building materials and running in part on renewable energy sources." Knowing this, the restaurant clearly had a very strong commitment to not only providing healthy food and drinks but also to being environmentally friendly as well. It's unfortunate to hear that a restaurant chain with such ambitious environmental and health related goals couldn't maintain its success in the long run.