Noon Mediterranean (formerly VERTS Mediterranean Grill and VERTS KEBAP) was an

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

-based fast casual restaurant chain. The company created the world's smallest food truck out of a Smart Car in 2011. In May 2016, it was rated ninth on Restaurant Business Online's list of Top 25 Fastest-Growing Fast Casuals. As of November 2017, Noon had 20 locations in the United States. Noon co-founder Dominik Stein was included on ''

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'' "30 Under 30" list under the Food & Drink category in 2017.

History

Verts was founded in 2011 by two

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

and WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management alumni, Michael Heyne and Dominik Stein, to recreate popular food from Europe which was not available in America. In February 2014, the chain announced it would be expanding into

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. In October 2014, Verts entered an agreement to open three locations in Dallas–Fort Worth. Verts opened its first

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location in September 2015. In December 2015, the company brought in $20 million in private equity, which would be used to expand the restaurant to the east coast. The first Plano location opened in April 2016. Poets & Quants named Verts one of the Top MBA Startups in January 2016. In September 2016, Verts announced a new location in

Center City, Philadelphia Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the city borders to be coterminous wi ...

, which opened in March 2017. In November 2016, Verts opened a new location in

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and announced a

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location. Two more Boston locations were announced in February 2017, and a location in Washington D.C. was announced that March. Also in March 2017, Verts was featured on

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

's list of 10 hot restaurant brands to watch. In July 2017, Yelp showed that a total of 11 Texas locations were closed, including five in and around Austin, all three in San Antonio, and three in cities surrounding Dallas/Ft. Worth. In November 2017, Verts was rebranded as Noon Mediterranean. Noon filed for bankruptcy on August 6, 2018 and was acquired by the parent company of

Daphne's Greek Cafe Daphne's Greek Cafe or, Daphne's California Greek is an American fast-casual Greek restaurant operating in California. The restaurant name refers to Daphne of Greek mythology whom the god Apollo desired. Daphne's was rated #11 in ''2006 Top 100 M ...

on October 7, 2018. Noon restaurants were rebranded as Daphne's in 2019 but were shuttered in late July, 2019.

References

External links

* (archive) {{DEFAULTSORT:Noon Mediterranean Restaurants established in 2011 2011 establishments in Texas Fast casual restaurants Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018 Defunct restaurant chains in the United States Restaurants disestablished in 2018 Companies based in Austin, Texas