Brown’s Chicken Restaurants Files for Bankruptcy Protection

A chain of chicken restaurants that became noted due to the 1993 slayings of seven employees at one of its suburban Chicago stores has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Brown's Chicken & Pasta filed on Tuesday ... two months after a DuPage County judge ordered the company to pay more than $800,000 to a former employee and minority shareholder. An attorney for the company says the company could not afford to pay the judgment.

Brown's has 39 stores in the Chicago area. The company once had as many as 150 stores, but the numbers have been dwindling since the slayings of the workers in Palatine.

The restaurants will remain open during the reorganization.