Basically, the company had to pay for its own buyout when private equity firms KKL, Vornado, and Bain bought the company for $6.6 billion, mostly with loans.
Because the company then had to pay off those extreme loans, they were forced to sell off their assets and property, which they leased back from the very private equity firms that now owned them.
The same thing happened more recently with Red Lobster and JoAnn Fabrics.
“Millennials are ruining the [_] industry! How dare they-”
Oh right, it was capitalist greed all along. Excuse me while I shed a tear for your precious local Applebee’s as you keep voting for the people who enable these acquisition monopolies, lmao