Wren Kitchens, a Home Depot partner brand, filed for bankruptcy and abruptly closed 15 stores — and it could put customers out of thousands of dollars.
The UK-based company, which launched its strategic partnership with Home Depot in 2024, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation and has shuttered all 15 of its retail store locations.
The closures, primarily located on the East Coast, were announced on the company’s US website.
“We regret to inform you that our showrooms and studios are now closed,” the message simply said, along with a link for customers to fill out a form if they need assistance.
According to USA Today, Home Depot had no information on when the Wren Kitchen locations would officially close — and didn’t even know in advance that it was happening.
“Wren Kitchens has alerted us that they’ve ceased operations in the United States, which includes closing their showrooms in our stores,” Home Depot said in a statement to the outlet.
“We had no previous notice of Wren’s intent to close, and we’re actively evaluating how this has affected Wren customers to help those who may have questions or issues.”
“For questions about operations, please contact Wren directly.”
Wren Kitchens operated 15 brick-and-mortar retailer stores on the East Coast, as well as Wren Kitchen Studios located inside Home Depot stores.
And like Home Depot, former employees of the company alleged that a closure warning was not given, according to local Connecticut news station WFSB, resulting in a class action lawsuit.
The class action lawsuit against Wren Kitchens US subsidiary was filed alleging that the company violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires employers will more than 100 full-time employees to give a 60-day notice informing employees and government officials of upcoming layoffs.
WFSB reported that workers were informed that the stores and showrooms would be closing immediately on a Zoom call that took place on April 23, and the company locked the doors by 4 p.m.
“No one got any pink slips. No one got anything. Once they walked out of the offices, all the computers went black, black screens,” Anes Hodzic, who worked as a manager in the Newington showroom, told WFSB.
Madison Cohen, a full-time kitchen designer for the company in New Haven, was mid-meeting with a client when she got the news.
“Our manager kind of comes, and just kind of grabs us out of the blue… we go outside, and he kind of tells us, like, oh, we all just lost our jobs. Our company is shut down,” she told NBC Connecticut.
“Nobody knew about it, none of our managers, nobody in the whole company, and everybody in the company got fired.”
Customers were also not informed — and now many are out thousands of dollars.
One customer, Melissa Dethlefsen, showed WFSB her now-gutted kitchen which was ready to be upgraded with $23,000 worth of new cabinets and countertops from Wren Kitchens that was supposed to be delivered this Wednesday.
“We paid them with a check, and they cashed it. And so they have all of our money. They have over $23,000 from us, and we don’t know what’s going on,” Dethlefsen added to NBC Connecticut.
Late last Thursday night, she received a call from her contractor informing her that Wren Kitchens had shut down, and she likely won’t be getting those kitchen parts anymore.
“As a family of five, it’s been hard to live in one room essentially. So to be so close and then to have it ripped away, is it’s like devastating,” she told the outlet.
Dethlefsen still hasn’t heard from Wren. She paid for the cabinets and countertops by credit card and check, and her bank is investigating, but she’s not sure what they can do about it. She filled out the form online, but doesn’t expect a response.
She noted that she was able to connect with someone at the UK office, but “he said that they had been told to be prepared for phone calls from the United States, not to speak to anybody from the press, and to just take our information.”
“Not that I want to be spiteful, but like somebody has to be held accountable for this,” she said.
