Private Equity-owned Companies in Times Square 

259 W 42^nd St.

Private equity owner: Sun Capital Partners

Owned by private equity since: at least 2005

Deal value: $359 million

Employees: 6,000

Buyout firms have been licking their chops to get a piece of the action at Chevy’s, a “Fresh-Mex” chain that has been bought and sold by three different private equity firms over the last three years. Bankrupt under buyout firm # 1 JW Childs, in 2005 private equity shop #2 Bruckmann Rosser Sherrill & Co. led a buyout for $78 million. About a year later buyout firm #3 and current owner Sun Capital Partners took over ownership of the 103 Chevy’s restaurants in a deal valued at $359 million. The buyout shops’ profits in the deals could have bought thousands of orders of the restaurant’s sizzling steak fajitas and “Sunburn” margaritas, but it seems like the people really getting burned at Chevy’s are its employees. One month after the most recent buyout, Sun Capital closed the original Chevy’s in Alameda, Calif. And eight workers at a Tracy, Calif. restaurant were fired after participating in an immigrant rights rally on May 1, 2006. Times Square employees report the company does not provide health insurance, even for workers who have been slinging nachos for upwards of eight years.