The Spokane Valley Perkins Restaurant on Argonne and Mission closed last week, said Nancy McDaniel, the principal owner of the company that operated it for 15 years.

McDaniel said that restaurant has lost money “for years.”  She said neither the Perkins company nor her own company, which operated it as a franchise, wanted to continue running it. McDaniel was one of four owners of that eatery, which opened in 1990.

Another one of her franchised Perkins, in Caldwell, Idaho, also shut down this past weekend. McDaniel said that store also was losing money.

The four-investor group also owns a Coeur d'Alene Perkins that will not close as well.

McDaniel is also a partner in a second area Perkins Restaurants franchisee. That firm, Perk Restaurant Management, operates six stores. The two Spokane Perkins in that group are also not closing, she said.

And neither the Spokane Valley nor the Caldwell closings was connected to a recent bankruptcy filed by national company Perkins & Marie Callender's, McDaniel said.

The national firm said in bankruptcy filings that it will close 65 stores and cut 2,500 jobs, or about 20 percent of its workforce. A Spokane Valley Marie Callender's was closed due to the bankruptcy.
  

The Spokane Valley Marie Callender's restaurant is one of more than 60 shut down this past weekend as parent firm,  Perkins & Marie Callender’s Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

A release noted that the chain expects to close 65 stores and lay off 2,500, roughly 20 percent of its work force of 12,350.

There are four area Perkins restaurants — two in Spokane, one in Spokane Valley, one in Coeur d’Alene  that are locally owned franchises which will stay open.

Documents filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware indicated the company could not afford to build new restaurants and upgrade existing ones, so it lost traffic to better funded restaurant competitors.