“COMPANY SHUT DOWN. WE’RE CLOSED,” reads a small piece of cardboard taped to the front door of Foxtrot Co., located walking distance from Southern Methodist University’s campus. Formerly a favorite location for a study date, or the go-to spot for a coffee in between classes, SMU students have mourned the loss of Foxtrot Co. since its seemingly random closure last April. After facing bankruptcy, Foxtrot is determined to make a comeback.

“I expect to get a date sometime in December,” Dallas Morning News reporter Sarah Blaskovich said in an email correspondence, regarding the opening of the Snider Plaza and Knox Village locations.

It has now been confirmed that these locations will reopen to the public in early January 2025. SMU students can rest assured that Foxtrot will once again be a part of their college experience.

“I remember after my 8 a.m. advertising class, I would always go to Foxtrot to get some work done in between classes,” says Sheridan Leahy, a junior at SMU. She recalls the morning of April 23. “We walked over at around 9:30 and we were doing work for a little bit. We noticed one of the employees was crying and kept going to the back room.”

“It seemed like she had just lost her job, but then we realized that everyone there was losing their job,” says Leahy, who was a frequent Foxtrot customer.

“Suddenly they started to tell people that their orders weren’t coming out, and they were putting the chairs up on the tables — basically closing down the place while we were sitting in there,” Leahy recalls. “The employees were standing on tables, and they were like, ‘Corporate just called, they’re shutting down all Foxtrots nationwide. They’re bankrupt and none of us have jobs anymore.’”

Foxtrot and their four locations in Dallas had become a staple spot for SMU students and Dallas locals. The Snider Plaza location opened on Dec. 11, 2019, and closed four years later on April 23, 2024. Individuals who frequented the coffee shop were shocked when it closed, seemingly out of the blue, on a Tuesday last spring. During its time in Snider Plaza, the store had become a hot spot for locals. Most days, it was hard to find a seat in the shop, as it was crowded with locals enjoying the atmosphere.

“Wanna do work at fox later?” reads a text from Taylor Rife, received by her close friend on April 21, 2024, just two days before the permanent closure of all four Foxtrot Co. stores in Dallas. Rife, like her peers, frequented these stores, grabbing coffee with her friends, or studying for her finals.

“It was an SMU student staple to catch up with your friends or grab a quick bite. I feel like my friends and I hang out less now that it’s closed,” says Rife.

“I had been a customer at Foxtrot for about two years, the atmosphere was so calm, it wasn’t just a regular coffee chain you go to like Starbucks,” says Leahy. “But then the atmosphere got so insane when it closed because it was very stressful and confusing. It was so sudden.”

If you have driven past any of the four Foxtrot locations since the closure, you would notice that the inside of them has remained exactly the same. All the products that were in the store on the day of closure remained in there, memorializing the day of the closure.

“I honestly wish they gave out their frozen and perishable stuff for free. That all just went bad and it all became food waste,” said Leahy.

It wasn’t until the past month that the locals began to see people inside the stores moving products around and seemingly preparing for the reopening of the stores. It sparked rumors throughout SMU’s campus as to whether the stores would reopen or not.

The Dallas Morning News confirmed in a Sept 4. publication that the Snider Plaza Foxtrot location will reopen in 2025.

“The Foxtrot team is already paying rent and has paid the back rent, (Jim Strode, landlord) said. The shops on Mckinney Avenue in Uptown Dallas and on Greenville Avenue in East Dallas will not reopen as Foxtrots, their agents confirmed,” writes Sarah Blaskovich Senior Food Reporter for the Dallas Morning News.

In a survey conducted amongst SMU undergraduate students, 32 out of 33 students said they were a customer of Foxtrot before it closed and plan on being a customer when it reopens. 63% (21 students) said they were most frequently customers at the Snider Plaza Foxtrot, 24% (12 students) said they were most frequently customers at the Knox Park Village location, and 12% (4 students) said they were most frequently customers at the Uptown Dallas location. Over 60% of students said they were the most interested in the Snider Plaza location reopening.

Unsuccessful efforts were made to contact Foxtrot’s co-founder Mike LaVitola and Snider Plaza landlord Jim Strode for further comment.