PASADENA, Calif. — Marmalade Café, a 36-year-old Southern California brunch chain once described by its patrons as “the place,” filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 2, and the story that has followed the filing is less about the money and more about the chair.

The filing, which Fox News covered in detail and the Daily Mail picked up from the other side, cites rent disputes, mounting supplier debt in excess of $1 million, and the decision to close roughly half the chain’s locations. It does not cite the Kardashians. The Kardashians, per every account of the last three decades, were “regulars.”

A regular, in restaurant terms, is someone who orders the same thing every time and knows the name of the person who makes it. The Kardashians ordered the same thing every time. The person who made it, per a former line cook who has asked not to be identified but who was, in any event, not identified in any account, “knew what they were going to order before they sat down.”

The chair is at the location on the south side of the chain’s original Pasadena restaurant. It has been pulled out from the table since, per the general manager, “the second week of September,” which is a statement the general manager made while standing next to the chair, which has not been moved.

"They knew what they were going to order before they sat down. That's what a regular is."

The $1 million in supplier debt is, per the filing, distributed among “numerous vendors,” a term that in the restaurant industry means approximately fourteen, of which three are flour companies, two are coffee roasters, and one is a man in a truck who, per the general manager, “just brings the lemons.” The lemons, the general manager added, are “the good ones.”

MARMALADE CAFÉ: THE FINAL TALLY

  • Years in business: 36
  • Locations at filing: roughly half of the original chain
  • Supplier debt: $1,000,000+, across "numerous vendors"
  • Flour companies among the vendors: 3. Coffee roasters: 2. Lemon trucks: 1 (the good lemons)
  • Famous regulars: "several," per the general manager, who declined to name them "for their privacy and mine"
  • The chair: pulled out, at the Pasadena location, since the second week of September

The general manager, asked whether the restaurant would reopen, said the Chapter 11 process “gives us time,” which is the phrase, per the general manager, “that the attorneys use and that I use.” Asked what the “time” is for, the general manager said: “For the lemons to get here.”

A patron who has been coming to the Pasadena location for 22 years was seen at 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday, ordering the thing, sitting in the chair, and eating. When asked whether she knew, the patron said: “I know what I came here for. That’s enough.”

At press time, the lemon truck had not arrived. The general manager had made three calls. The fourth call, per the general manager, “is going to be a different number.” The chair, for its part, remains pulled out. It has not been, per the general manager, “a concern.”