Laid off from RNDC.

Previous rounds

RNDC layoff history

Two people can leave RNDC the same month with the same job title and end up with completely different problems. One worked at a site that got sold, and a buyer's name is on the building now. The other worked at a site that got closed, and the employer is a bankruptcy estate. RNDC did both at once through 2026, so the first thing worth establishing is which one happened to you.

The company was the country's second-largest wine and spirits distributor not long ago, working in as many as 40 states and serving more than 2,000 suppliers and 170,000 customers. It sold those markets off region by region, then filed Chapter 11 on July 26, 2026 in the Southern District of Texas, saying it would pursue court-supervised sales of what remained and wind down the rest. Court filings put it at about 1,460 employees in 21 states by then, against a business Shanken News Daily valued at over $11 billion in revenue as recently as 2024. Our tracker holds 45 filings covering 9,093 jobs since the start of 2025, spread across 22 states, with 35 filings covering 7,277 jobs in 2026 alone. Counting every year the state archives hold, 51 filings match the company.

The sold side is the bigger one, and it's the part a filing count hides. Reyes Beverage Group closed its purchase of RNDC operations on May 29, 2026. RNDC listed ten markets as complete that day, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C., with Hawaii still waiting on regulators, while Reyes described the same deal as 11 markets with Hawaii counted in. Reyes said it added approximately 5,200 employees and would run those businesses as RBG Spirits and Wine, and RNDC said its sales preserved over 5,000 jobs. Those figures and the notice totals are separate counts rather than a matching set. The notices covered whole facilities while sales were still pending, and how far the two lists overlap at any one site isn't something the filings settle.

There's a rule underneath that, and it decides who owes you notice. Under the WARN Act, the seller is responsible for notice up to and including the effective date of a sale and the purchaser is responsible after it, and for WARN purposes anyone the seller employed on that date, other than part-time staff, counts as the purchaser's employee immediately afterward. That settles who has to send the letter and nothing more than that. It promises no one a job, and RNDC said so itself in plainer words. Its human resources director wrote to Oregon officials that a buyer might extend offers to certain employees, with no guarantee that it would, and in Washington the company said there was no guarantee buyers would offer new jobs to the 267 people at its Auburn, Everett, Seattle and Spokane sites.

The closed side ends somewhere else entirely. In Georgia, RNDC and affiliated businesses filed four notices covering 558 employees at an Atlanta site and one near Marietta, with layoffs expected to begin October 19 and the notices stating that affected employees have no right to move into other RNDC positions. That last detail is the reverse of the transfer exception WARN otherwise allows, where an offer to move to another site within a reasonable commute can mean no employment loss at all. The company said it looked at financing that could have kept those facilities open and couldn't raise it. Set two things there beside your own paperwork, because RNDC's corporate map has holes in it. National Distributing Company is a separate legal entity that stays at the Atlanta address and isn't part of the bankruptcy, and the joint ventures in New York, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky sit outside the filing too. The entity printed on your pay stub, not the letters on the truck, tells you which process you're actually in.

So the three things to pin down first are which legal entity employed you, whether your site was sold or closed, and the exact effective date written on your notice. Those decide whether a buyer's HR department or the bankruptcy estate is the party that owes you an answer, and our WARN tracker shows what got filed in your state and when. If a sale closed in your market, to Reyes, Columbia, Breakthru, Quality Brands or Manhattan Beverage, that buyer is who to ask about the accounts you served. If your state's deal was still unsettled, as RNDC's control-state operations were when the Martignetti agreement was last reported, the notice in your hand is a timer rather than an answer, and the thing to get in writing is who your employer will be on the date it runs out.

Reporting on previous RNDC layoff rounds

• 2026, Chapter 11 wind-down · 558 jobs across two metro Atlanta sites, split across four notices covering RNDC, its Texas entity and Young's Market, with layoffs expected to begin October 19 and no right to transfer into other RNDC positions

  Terms not published. RNDC said it explored financing and other options that could have prevented the Georgia closures and couldn't secure enough to keep the facilities running.

• 2026, control-state notices · 641 Michigan jobs across five sites near Kentwood, Traverse City, Escanaba, Livonia and Saginaw, conditional on a Martignetti deal for RNDC's control-state operations that neither company had announced as closed

  Terms not published. RNDC said no final employment decisions had been made and that the notice didn't indicate any transaction had been completed.

• 2026, Washington closures · 267 workers as four sites closed in Auburn, Everett, Seattle and Spokane, with terminations set on or within 14 days after July 17

  Terms not published. RNDC said there was no guarantee that employees would be offered new jobs by potential buyers.

• 2026, acquisition-conditional · 2,774 employees noticed on April 22 and 23 across six states as the Reyes sale neared, with Florida's 1,046 the largest share and Texas filings of 689 in Grand Prairie and 588 in Houston the largest single sites

  Terms not published. Most separations were set to take effect within 14 days of June 21, and the South Carolina closure on July 5.

• September 2025, California exit · 1,756 roles statewide, from Tustin and Chino warehouses to San Diego, Commerce and Sacramento, reaching Teamsters drivers, sales representatives, accountants and Young's Market staff

  Terms not published. The chief executive said the decision came from rising operational costs, industry headwinds and supplier changes that made the market unsustainable.

How RNDC's layoffs compare to other companies

Distribution jobs follow supplier contracts. When Brown-Forman and Tito's moved their California business to Reyes, those brands went to a competitor's warehouses, which is why applying to the distributor that won your suppliers' business is the most direct next move in this industry.

What to do after being laid off from RNDC

1. File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. RNDC's biggest hubs: Texas, California, Florida. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
2. Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what RNDC's hub states run: Texas, California, Florida, and every other state is here.
3. Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
4. Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
5. Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.