FM Restaurants HQ, LLC California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as FM Restaurants HQ, LLCreported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and these figures come from the state's report as retrieved on Aug 13, 2026.

How much notice the law requires

California's WARN Act requires 60 days of advance written notice before a covered mass layoff, and its only statutory exception is a physical calamity or an act of war — far narrower than federal law's three. Who is covered and how the thresholds are counted is in our California WARN Act guide.

FM Restaurants HQ severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the notice pay the WARN Act describes. Severance you were already promised — in a contract, a handbook, or a union agreement — cannot be used to satisfy that obligation, though Labor Code section 1402 does let an employer reduce a back-pay award by voluntary payments it was never required to make. A release may also give up more than you expect. Justin reviews severance agreements before workers sign. What to check before you decide is in our full guide to the California WARN Act.

Two things worth doing this week either way. File for unemployment now — WARN money does not reduce it, and the filings here run through Jun 10, 2026, so you do not have to wait for your last day. And keep every document, including the notice itself and anything showing when it arrived.

What your notice was required to include

Timing is only half of what Labor Code section 1401 asks for. The notice itself has to contain specific things, and California added most of this list for notices issued on or after January 1, 2026. Every notice on this page falls after that date. If you kept your copy, read it against the full six-item checklist in our WARN Act guide — everything federal law requires, whether transition help is being coordinated, working contact details for your workforce board and for the employer itself, and CalFresh information.

Source: Labor Code section 1401, as amended by SB 617, effective January 1, 2026. A notice missing something from that list is not automatically a violation with a remedy attached — whether a gap matters depends on the employer, the action, and what else happened.

Questions people are asking

Where a layoff can raise a legal question

A layoff is lawful on its own, and nothing below is a statement about FM Restaurants HQ. These are the places California law can still come into play, depending on the facts of your own situation.

• The severance you were asked to signA release can give up claims you did not know you had, and the terms are sometimes negotiable.
• How you were selectedA reduction in force still cannot be used to cut someone for a protected reason such as age, disability, pregnancy, or a complaint they made.
• Your final paycheckCalifornia sets when final wages are due at termination, and unpaid time or accrued vacation can carry penalties on top of the wages.
• The length of the notice periodWhere a notice period turns out to fall short of what the law required, the question usually belongs to everyone in the same position rather than to one person.

General information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

What has been reported

Press coverage of this layoff, summarized and attributed. This is reporting rather than the filing itself, and we did not independently verify it.

The Irvine filing matches the El Torito restaurant at 18512 MacArthur Boulevard. Patch, citing the Orange County Register, reported that the decades-old El Torito on MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine closed, with a last day of service of May 30, 2026; the restaurant had opened in the 1980s in a former Casa Maria space.

TheStreet reported that the Irvine closure continued a long contraction at El Torito, which is owned by Xperience Restaurant Group (XRG) and is down to about 21 locations after once operating 187 restaurants in 25 states. Citing the Orange County Register, TheStreet noted the chain had closed longtime Orange County locations in Dana Point, Laguna Hills, Orange, Westminster and Tustin over the past three years.

Sources: Patch (opens in a new tab) · TheStreet via Yahoo Finance (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The filings name 2 locations: Cypress and Irvine.
• They cover 2 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• Every notice is filed as a closure rather than a partial reduction, meaning the sites themselves are shutting down.
• The jobs do not all end on the same day. The filings list 3 separate last days of work, running from April 19, 2026 to June 10, 2026.
• The shortest gap between notice and last day here is 2 days, against a statewide median of 61 days across every notice on file.
• By headcount it sits in the top 25% of the 599 employer layoffs tracked here.
• The 148 workers leaving FM Restaurants HQ, LLC re-enter a job market where Orange County unemployment stood at 4.1% in June 2026, below the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• The filings came in waves: 2 notices in April 2026 covering 92 jobs, then one notice in May 2026 covering 56 jobs.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about FM Restaurants HQ.

Free job-search help near the affected sites

America's Job Center of California is the state's no-cost network for laid-off workers: help filing and keeping unemployment benefits, federally funded retraining, and résumé and interview coaching. Your WARN notice may name one; these are the closest to the sites in these filings.

• Orange County Workforce Solutions Center Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos (opens in a new tab)

  11206 Lexington Drive, Los Alamitos, CA 90720 · 866-500-6587

  Affiliate center (partial services) · about 2.5 miles from the Cypress site

• Orange County Workforce Solutions Center- Mobile Unit - (opens in a new tab)

  1300 S. Grand Avenue, Santa Ana, CA 92705 · 866-500-6587

  Affiliate center (partial services) · about 3.8 miles from the Irvine site

Locations and hours change — confirm before visiting, or find another center with the EDD's center locator (opens in a new tab). Directory: U.S. Department of Labor, Jul 31, 2026; distances are straight-line from the address in the filing.

Other layoffs filed in Orange County around the same time

64 employers have WARN notices on file in Orange County, covering 7,189 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Foreside Home Care & Nursing300 workers
• Supernal, LLC296 workers
• Saks & Company LLC231 workers
• Crittenton144 workers
• De La Pena Eye Clinic136 workers
• Anaheim Transportation Network132 workers

Listed because they appear in the same county in the same public data. No connection between these employers is implied.

California wage claims filed against FM Restaurants HQ

California employers face claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which lets an employee sue for civil penalties over Labor Code violations on behalf of the state. The state publishes every filing. 6 PAGA cases naming this employer are on that record, including the settlements below.

These are outcomes in other people’s cases, obtained by other lawyers, taken from the state’s public filing record. They are not results of this firm, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. What any individual recovers depends on their own hours, pay records, and dates.

• Proposed settlement · 2021

  $750,000

  Current and former non-exempt employees of a California restaurant chain will receive payments from a $750,000 settlement to resolve claims for civil penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act. The settlement alleges violations including failure to pay minimum wages, overtime, meal and rest breaks, and provide accurate wage statements. The defendant denies all claims and the settlement is not an admission of liability. The settlement requires court approval.

  Covered all current and former non-exempt employees who worked in a Covered Position during the PAGA Period. The settlement resolved PAGA civil penalties only.

  Attorneys' fees

  $250,000

  To the state (LWDA)

  $349,875

  Superior Court of the State of California, for the County of Orange, Civil Complex Center · 30-2020-01126373-CU-OE-CJC · FM Restaurants HQ denied liability; a settlement is not an admission.

A PAGA case is not a class action, and there is nothing to opt out of. A PAGA settlement resolves civil penalties owed to the state — most of which the state keeps — and it does not necessarily resolve your own unpaid wages, missed break premiums, or final-paycheck penalties. If you worked here and were not paid correctly, that is a separate question worth asking about. How California wage claims work.