CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WNCN) — The parent companies of three Al Burger’s Shack locations in Chapel Hill have filed for bankruptcy protection.

The restaurant gained national notoriety in 2018 when TripAdvisor rated it as having the best burger in America.

Owner Al Bowers says the restaurants will remain open, and that the bankruptcy filing is an effort to “reorganize.”

“While sales are strong at our three locations, we overextended during expansion and need protection and relief while we reorganize.  We appreciate your support and patronage and will need to keep public comments on these proceedings to a minimum,” he wrote in an email to CBS17. “As grateful as we were to have received accolades in recent years, we are even more so to have been afforded this opportunity to regroup. Rest assured we have absolutely no plans to stop slinging burgers and hope to see you at Al’s soon.”

Court filings show the parent company, AJEM Hospitality LLC, listed assets at less than $50,000 and liabilities of between $500,001 and $1 million.

The location on Franklin Street opened in 2013. Al’s later expanded to Southern Village and Governor’s Drive, with location submitting individual bankruptcy filings last Friday.

A judge has scheduled a hearing in Winston-Salem on Wednesday.

In court records, attorneys John Paul H. Cournoyer and Stephanie Osborne write that the issues began with the expansion to the new locations.

They write, “In order to finance the upfit and other costs for the new locations, the debtors obtained multiple merchant cash advance loans starting in 2017 and continuing through 2019. The loans purport to be a cash payment for the sale of a share of future receivables. The effective interest rates on most (and perhaps all) of these loans was over 50%.”

“For example, in 2019, Silverline Services made a merchant cash advance loan to Southern Village Shack LLC, with a purchase price of $375,000, which bears an effective interest rate of roughly 100%,” the attorneys write.

In an email to CBS17, Cournoyer writes, “As part of the expansion and opening of two new locations, the companies obtained certain high-interest loans. The restaurants are strong businesses, and if it were not for these loans the companies would be healthy.  This is precisely the type of problem that Chapter 11 bankruptcy is designed to fix.  I feel confident in our ability to successfully reorganize and that Al’s Burger Shack will be around for years to come.”