The Southern comfort food empire that once made Paula Deen a household name has come to an abrupt end in her home state of Georgia.
After 36 years of serving buttermilk biscuits and fried chicken to tourists and locals alike, the disgraced celebrity chef has permanently closed the doors of her iconic Savannah restaurants, The Lady & Sons and The Chicken Box, marking the end of her Georgia restaurant presence and leaving dozens of employees without jobs or proper notice.
The sudden closure on Thursday, July 31, sent shock waves through Savannah’s historic district, where The Lady & Sons had become a tourist magnet.
Deen’s restaurant empire has been steadily shrinking since her career-damaging scandal over a decade ago, when she admitted to using racial slurs and faced allegations of workplace discrimination.
“Hey, y’all, my sons and I made the heartfelt decision that Thursday, July 31st, was the last day of service for The Lady & Sons and The Chicken Box,” Deen announced in a Facebook post signed by herself and her sons Jamie and Bobby. The family also limited the comments so no one could weigh in.
The family expressed gratitude to customers and staff, stating, “We have endless love and gratitude for every customer who has walked through our doors.”
However, the warm sentiment sharply contrasted with reality.
Many employees discovered they were unemployed only when they arrived for work to find locked doors and police outside.
One frustrated X user captured the workers’ plight: “Paula Deen CLOSED her restaurant in Savannah without telling a SINGLE employee. Folks showed up for work to find a locked building and police outside. No warning. No severance. No respect. School just started and they won’t get unemployment for weeks.”
Another person tweeted, “Wow, another one bites the dust—Paula Deen’s spot closing is rough but not shocking. Maybe the market’s just too tight right now, @Michael_ReedSEA’s been saying that for a while. End of an era for sure.”
Paula Deen CLOSED her restaurant in Savannah without telling a SINGLE employee.
Folks showed up for work to find a locked building and police outside. No warning. No severance. No respect. School Just started and they won’t get unemployment for weeks— Q (@QUANNAMC) August 1, 2025
Still some are skeptical of the timing, including one person who said, “For her to abruptly close like that is strange. I wonder what’s going on.”
Another said, “The food was terrible. It was only a matter of time.” A third wondered, “She did this again?”
The abrupt closure follows a troubling pattern. In 2019, several Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen locations in Florida’s Panhandle region closed unexpectedly, leaving workers like Clifford Heniser scrambling.
Heniser, a former prep cook at the Destin location, had just started working there in October 2019, leaving his previous job for better pay, only to be let go in November without his final paycheck.
“I’m still in shock because of what happened and don’t understand and can’t get ahold of anybody for my paycheck,” Heniser told WEAR News.
The Georgia closures symbolize the ongoing consequences of Deen’s 2013 scandal that decimated her multimillion-dollar empire.
During a deposition related to a discrimination lawsuit filed by former employee Lisa Jackson, Deen admitted to using the N-word multiple times throughout her life, contradicting her later public claims that she had only used the slur once during a bank robbery 30 years earlier.
The scandal’s impact extended beyond admitting to using racial slurs.
Allegations recently resurfaced on TikTok regarding Deen’s treatment of Dora Charles, a Black cook who worked at The Lady & Sons for 20 years. Charles alleged that Deen appropriated her recipes and broke promises to share success, claiming Deen once told her, “Stick with me, one day, if I get rich, you get rich.”
According to Charles, who told The New York Times in 2013, “I’ve heard her use the n-word,” Deen abandoned her once fame arrived.
The 2013 scandal’s immediate aftermath was swift and devastating.
Major corporate sponsors including Target, Walmart, and Caesars Entertainment severed ties with Deen, while the Food Network declined to renew her contract. Forbes had listed her as the fourth highest-earning chef in 2012, but within a week, her empire crumbled.
Public reaction to the recent closures has been particularly harsh, with one X user writing, “If anybody still supports Paula Deen, just know, theres been now 4x’s she’s shut the doors of her restaurants in her hometown of Savannah, Georgia, with no notice to the employees who rely on the income. Stop supporting the … money hungry, fake southern…”
Now, Deen’s restaurant presence is limited to four Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen locations in tourist destinations: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Branson, Missouri.
The Georgia closures mark the definitive end of Deen’s restaurant legacy in her home state, leaving behind a complicated history of Southern comfort food, workplace controversies, and workers who continue to bear the cost of her business decisions.
Great Job Nicole Duncan-Smith & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
