Beloved 13-Year-Old Fast Food Chain Closes All Locations Amid Cyclospora Outbreak

The ongoing Cyclospora outbreak in the United States continues to take its toll on both consumers and businesses. The Arizona-based drive-thru salad chain, Salad and Go, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. While the official Salad and Go website previously stated that about 40 locations would close and another 100 would remain open, that information is now outdated. All locations closed as of Wednesday, August 5, 2026.

The founders of Salad and Go also run Angie's and were behind America's first drive-thru lobster chain. They sold Salad and Go to a private equity company in 2021, and recently posted about the closure, expressing their sadness and frustration at the news. "Thirteen years ago, we started Salad and Go with a simple belief that great-tasting, good-for-you food should be affordable for everyone. We dreamed that anywhere there was a McDonald's, there would also be a better and healthier alternative that people could afford," they wrote in a post on Facebook. 

The Cyclosporiasis outbreak did not directly affect Salad and Go. However, according to an email from the company that was shared on Reddit, the outbreak "weakened confidence across the industry" and was the final factor in a string of challenges the business could not overcome. "Sustained pressure on consumer demand, past strategic growth challenges and rising costs" were also cited in the letter as the main challenges the company faced. In remarkable foresight, the founders wrote a Facebook post in January 2026 predicting that Salad and Go would fail due to decisions made by its new owners.

Salad and Go was already struggling in 2025. The chain closed dozens of locations across Texas and Oklahoma toward the end of the year, prompting the former owners to share their prediction about its future on Facebook. The founders blamed Salad and Go's struggles on lowered standards, poor ingredients, and higher prices. In their view, Salad and Go had turned its back on the mission it was founded to fulfill: providing good-quality food at affordable prices.

In another statement, Angie's offered its assistance to former Salad and Go employees. The Instagram post lead with the message: "To the Salad and Go Team: Angie's Is Hiring," and said that thousands of Salad and Go employees lost their jobs without severance. It went on and said, "As thousands of new customers discover Angie's and demand grows across Arizona, we are immediately expanding our teams at our restaurants, production facility, and warehouse." It continued by listing starting wages for various positions and invited former Salad and Go employees to apply.

In their January prediction about Salad and Go's future, the founders suggested they might eventually take over the chain's former locations. However, Dutch Bros has also expressed interest in taking over the leases on many former Salad and Go locations. As part of the bankruptcy filing, Salad and Go asked the courts to approve the sale of leases to Dutch Bros for $105 million. The sale would cover 65 former Salad and Go locations across the four states where Salad and Go operated, including 51 in Arizona and Nevada and 14 in Texas and Oklahoma.