Foxtrot also had millions in unpaid bills. But when vendors tried the company’s emails and phone numbers, they already had been disconnected. Former employees filed a lawsuit against the company for violating the WARN Act, which requires businesses to inform employees of mass layoffs in advance; their complaint demanded 60 days of backpay, the amount of notice they should legally have received. Some vendors also sued the company in an effort to get paid.

Now, two years later, most of these claims—the bills owed, the case from staffers, even equipment that Foxtrot rented and never paid for in full—are still outstanding. Despite that, Foxtrot stores are up and running again, opening shiny new locations in Chicago and Dallas, with the same CEO who started the original company, Mike LaVitola. That’s in part because LaVitola, along with one of Foxtrot’s early VC investors—a firm called Further Point Enterprises that no longer has a website and shares little publicly about its work—have been able to so far avoid paying debts thanks to the Chapter 7 bankruptcy process, all while resurrecting a new version of the company. Many of their actions raise questions about whether they followed proper bankruptcy procedure, and could be forced to pay those debts after all. Further Point, Foxtrot, and LaVitola did not respond to detailed requests for comment for this story.