It is a little sad that Heinemann’s is closing, but I would be feeling a little worse for the owners if they did not treat their employees and customers so badly.

The restaurants closed Wednesday.

Co-owner Peggy Burns and her managers began calling employees Tuesday evening, after the restaurants closed for the day, to tell them of the closing.

“It’s a very difficult time,” said Burns in an interview.

For whom, Peggy, you or the employees you canned without a single day’s notice? Are you going to let them come back and collect any personal belongings?

And then there was this gem:

Customers who have Heinemann’s gift cards are among the unsecured creditors. The restaurants sold gift cards through the holidays.

“We hope to pay them,” said Kerkman, explaining that the company started keeping a list of gift card purchasers after plans for the closing were first discussed in November.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. What was a failing business, a business that owed about $725,000 and is unable to pay its creditors, doing selling gift cards? What are the chances that the people who bought the cards believing the restaurants would be there will be treated honorably by the people who sold the cards knowing that chances were overwhelmingly good that the restaurants would fold?

When a restaurant has $725,000 in unpayable existing debt, the effects of a city sick leave ordinance are pretty theoretical. Despite claims to the contrary, Burns did not blame the sick leave ordinance for the closing. She appeared to be responding to a question from a reporter:

Burns also said the new Milwaukee ordinance that requires city employers to provide sick days to their workers would have made it difficult for her to continue in business.

It’s an entirely conditional, theoretical response. The restaurant is already broke — the sick leave ordinance (and I’m still not entirely sold on it) doesn’t figure at all into why the chain actually is going under, as the Brawler noted.

Folkbum insists it was quality, or lack thereof, that killed Heinemann’s. Surely his reference to food that is “not all that great” did not include the grilled coffee cake. Did it?

Honkytonkitis performs in Mitchell Blvd. Park at 6:30 p.m. More here.