These Philly-area homeowners put deposits on kitchen remodels. Then, their design company abruptly closed.

A Delaware County chef recently made a $13,000 down payment on his dream home kitchen, one with cream and sage-green cabinets, a large center island, and a coffee station.

Rick Follo envisioned it as an upgraded gathering space where he would cook Sunday dinners for his wife, three grown children, and seven grandchildren.

Then, just as contractors started knocking down walls and doing electric work, the design company, U.K.-based Wren Kitchens, abruptly closed all its U.S. showrooms. That included locations in Cherry Hill, Plymouth Township, and Springfield, Delaware County, where Follo, 68, was a customer.

The locations hadn’t been open long. Wren Kitchens in Plymouth Township, near Conshohocken, opened about a year ago in the shell of a former Rite Aid, while the Springfield store opened this past summer.

As Wren Kitchens’ U.S. arm files for liquidation bankruptcy, Follo, of Broomall, is left with an under-construction living space and little hope that any of his deposit money will ever be refunded.

“This is everything that we saved for and then some,” Follo said. “There is no way that people should be able to rob you of your money just like that.”

Wren Kitchens’ sudden shutdown of U.S. operations impacted about 30,000 customers, including more than 8,000 in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and hundreds of employees who lost their jobs without warning, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Attorneys are filing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of former employees, alleging that Wren Kitchens violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, a federal law that requires companies to give 60 days notice of a plant closure or mass layoff.

Lawyers representing Wren Kitchens in the bankruptcy case did not return requests for comment. Email inquiries to the company also went unanswered.

For some local Wren Kitchens customers, the situation has caused financial, logistical, and emotional stress.

“What got me more upset than the money was all the time and energy I spent meeting with them, designing with them,” said Linda Johnson, a Springfield real estate agent who paid Wren Kitchens about $2,200 for an initial deposit and spent eight months working with the company.

Johnson visited the Springfield store two weeks ago for a final consultation and said she saw no cause for concern. The 74-year-old even tried to pay her remaining balance of $26,000, but was told to wait for one last approval.

“Thank God, I didn’t give them that money,” said Johnson, who took out a loan for the payment. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

At Johnson’s split-level home in Springfield, contractors have already begun ripping out her kitchen.

Her stove was removed, so she’s been cooking with an air fryer. Wires hang from the ceiling, she said, and the floor is half-finished.

Johnson has started shopping for other contractors but said she is overwhelmed by the idea of restarting the design process.

In Roxborough, Danielle Kucinski’s kitchen is also in shambles.

Two weeks ago, she said she was preparing for the June installation of her upgraded kitchen by Wren, with a black-and-white design and a third row of cabinets for extra storage.

“I got half the cabinets down,” said Kucinski, 57. “The refrigerator is in the dining room.”

Then, she heard the news that Wren Kitchens was ceasing its U.S. operations.

A customer of the Conshohocken store, Kucinski said she feels grateful that she and her husband, David Glickman, deposited only $2,400 on the remodel. They had financed the remaining $21,400, enticed by Wren Kitchens’ offer of no interest for seven years, she said, and were set to start monthly payments soon.

Still, being left with half a kitchen is a headache, Kucinski said. She’s distracted herself from the stress by focusing on the Flyers’ playoff run.

But soon, she said, they’ll have to figure out what to do next.

“My appliances are all on order from Lowe’s. I’ve been pushing them back,” Kucinski said. But with the project already in progress, the kitchen is “going to have to get done, one way or another.”

Wren Kitchens employees have also been left in the lurch.

Brynn Jonell Kozak, 36, had packaged orders at Wren Kitchens’ Wilkes-Barre warehouse for five years. She enjoyed the fast pace of the job, she said, and liked her coworkers, whom she described as “good working-class people.”

She said she made $17 an hour, worked 40-hour weeks, and received full health benefits.

But it all ended April 23, when a manager gathered employees 30 minutes before a scheduled shift to announce that the facility was closing. They were all losing their jobs immediately.

“I was crying my eyes out,” Kozak said. “There was people that were mad. They were yelling. They were throwing stuff.”

For Kozak, the closure was a double whammy: Her husband, David Kozak, 40, also worked at Wren and lost his job. The couple have been interviewing for other warehouse positions in the days since. They said they hope to again get hired at the same place because they share a car.

Wren Kitchens’ customers could get some relief through the bankruptcy process, though the court process can be long and winding.

The local customers with whom The Inquirer spoke are listed among the company’s more than 30,000 creditors, according to bankruptcy documents.

After first sharing his story with NBC10, Follo, the Broomall chef, said he has talked with local and state officials about how he might recoup some of his $13,000. After those conversations, Follo said he is under the impression that customers like him will be lucky to get a fraction of what they lost, and even that could take years.

Follo said he doesn’t understand how the company can continue its U.K. operations yet be unable to repay him.

How to file a consumer complaint in Pa. and N.J.

Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Consumer Protection has received complaints about Wren Kitchens, spokesperson Brett Hambright said, and encourages any impacted resident to file a complaint with the department.

Hambright said consumers should specify how they paid Wren, including whether they financed the purchase, so the bureau can best assist.

Pennsylvanians’ complaints can be filed online at attorneygeneral.gov/submit-a-complaint/consumer-complaint. 

New Jerseyans can file complaints at njconsumeraffairs.nj.gov/file-a-complaint.