Keke’s Breakfast Cafe temporarily closes four Orlando-area locations

Keke’s Breakfast Cafe has temporarily closed four of its Orlando area locations after a dispute between the restaurant and a local franchise owner.

The four restaurants are in Apopka, Lake Mary, Windermere and Winter Park. Keke’s, which serves breakfast and lunch and is perhaps best known for its large pancakes, said it tried to work with the franchise owner to keep those Central Florida locations open but decided a temporary closure was the best option. It hopes all the restaurants will reopen with new owners, though it did not provide a timetable.

“Closing a cafe for any amount of time is never the first choice or an easy one,” the restaurant said in a prepared statement. “Keke’s, Inc. made significant efforts to partner with the non-compliant franchisee to find a solution that would result in the best possible outcomes for all parties and prevent closures.”

The company declined to provide details on what prompted the decision to close and in what ways the franchise owner was “non-compliant.”

Gregory Leitzinger, the franchise owner of the four Keke’s locations, has been sued several times by other businesses who argue his restaurant companies have not paid back loans as promised.

But Leitzinger said he was forced out by Keke’s leadership after declining to expand his role within the organization, choosing to operate only his four locations.

“They were forcing me to sell the locations they wanted to own and sell franchises and things,” he said. “If you weren’t willing to do that and open new stores with them outside of Orlando and the Florida markets, they basically didn’t want to continue doing business with you.”

After he refused to sell, he said lawsuits were filed in retaliation. The loans in question were taken out to construct the four local Keke’s restaurants, he added.

The lawsuits — filed in New York because of where the loan companies do business — so far have ended with three judgments against Leitzinger and his companies totaling $192,053.The three ongoing lawsuits against his companies seek another $392,000.

Leitzinger said he was not notified of the closures until Jan. 28, the day the restaurants closed.

“They sent me an email the day that they closed the restaurants without giving me or the staff any notice,” he said.

Several employees from the closed Keke’s restaurants have already found new roles within the company, according to a statement from Keke’s, though positions for every employee impacted by the closures are not guaranteed.

Keke’s officials said they visited each location to “communicate directly with managers and team members” before temporarily closing and do not “take the impact on their lives lightly”, according to their statement.

An Orlando-based franchise, Keke’s was acquired by Denny’s Corp. in July 2022 for $82.5 million.

For Leitzinger, who opened the first Keke’s franchise location in Winter Park in 2010, the sale to Denny’s was when his troubles began, he said.

“Things started to go south when Denny’s took over the company, and it’s had issues since then,” he said. “But this was definitely not a decision I would have made and there were other avenues they could have gone down.”

The company said Tuesday via email that it had no further comment on what it called “an ongoing matter.’

In its earlier statement, the company said, “Today, our focus is on encouraging all involved parties to complete the necessary transactions swiftly so that cafes can reopen and resume employing and serving the surrounding communities.”

Leitzinger said he also hopes to see the local Keke’s cafes open for business again.

“I don’t believe that we’ll continue to work together, but it’s my hopes that they will come to some sort of resolution so that the restaurants can reopen and that employees can be brought back in a timely manner,” he said.

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