Whatever Happened To OatMeals After Shark Tank?

Times have been anything but certain for folks trying to make a living in the restaurant business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even the best and most carefully charted of businesses found themselves in jeopardy as the universe shifted around them. So it went for OatMeals, the New York City café that featured nutritious oatmeal-based meals for every course. The company appeared on "Shark Tank" in December 2018 during the show's holiday special, hoping to turn its single location into a chain and expand its business to sell its nutritious and highly versatile products to grocery store chains worldwide.

Its founder, Samantha "Sam" Stephens, brought experience to the table — the business had been running for nearly seven years at the time, and Stephens had been named Quaker Oats' creative oatmeal officer in 2013. Unfortunately, all of that experience couldn't save Stephens' dreams of making oatmeal a multi-meal staple. As of press time, OatMeals is operating at a reduced capacity, only selling one of its products online, which composes its contemporary online footprint.

Sam Stephens had two Sharks warring over a stake in her company, and in picking one deal over the other, she may have sealed her company's future health — at least for the time being. Here's how a missed deal with a Shark might have resulted in a change in OatMeals' destiny. 

Sam Stephens brought OatMeals to the floor of "Shark Tank" looking for a $500,000 investment in trade for 20% of the company. Her New York City restaurant, OatMeals, also served cookies and other baked goods, as well as coffee and other beverages to wash it all down with. Fittingly, its portions were named after characters in "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," and it offered up Baby Bear, Mama Bear, and Papa Bear sizes.

The menu at OatMeals showed off the expansive possibilities of the breakfast staple, and Stephens brought a bowl of oats for each Shark to try as she pitched her plans. She explained to the Sharks that her 380-square-foot locale was too small for her current needs and that she yearned to expand the business into a chain to better serve her needs. While the company had made $2.5 million, the net profits accrued at the time totaled $500,000 for 2017. Though they all liked the way the oats tasted, that fact was enough to give some of the Sharks pause. 

Two Sharks stepped up to the plate with completely different business proposals for Stephens. Barbara Corcoran suggested turning OatMeals into an Instacart-style business and asked for 50% ownership of this version of OatMeals. Lori Greiner, meanwhile, suggested Stephens sell her oatmeal at retail, frozen in supermarkets, and in locations like Starbucks. She offered $500,000 for a 33.3% stake in the company and said she would get Stephens in touch with Starbucks. The notion of having her products in Starbucks locations worldwide seemed to ping Stephens' interest, and she made a deal with Grenier.

In the immediate aftermath of OatMeals' appearance on "Shark Tank," Sam Stephens made other appearances to promote the OatMeals brand, including multiple appearances on the Quaker Oats Facebook page, and submitted recipes to Quaker Oats' website featuring its products. There's no word as to whether or not OatMeals saw a boost from the "Shark Tank" effect, but the appearance apparently drew enough attention to the brand to keep the company solvent for a time.  

Unfortunately, the promised deal between OatMeals and Lori Greiner seems to have never materialized, and the company never produced foods for Starbucks chains nationwide, nor did its products ever appear in frozen format in grocery stores. OatMeals remained a New York City brand, with a small arm that produced food like granola for international shipping. There's no word as to why the deal fell apart or if Greiner ever pursued it after the cameras stopped rolling. Instead, OatMeals continued to grind along independently as a single-location restaurant for several more years — until, that is, fate intervened. 

OatMeals is indeed extant in some format as of press time, but the company shuttered its brick-and-mortar restaurant in January of 2021. It explained on the front page of OatMeals' official website that the business impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the restaurant's closure, making the bakery and café another casualty of a pandemic that's closed restaurants and other public gathering spaces worldwide since the virus began spreading. 

However, there's still some good news afoot for fanatics of the company's particular brand of wholesome, steel-cut oats: OatMeals continues to sell its breakfast granola blend through its online store, so customers can cook their own breakfasts at home. Each bag of oats costs $14 plus shipping. Interestingly enough, the restaurant's menu remains accessible on its website, which may portent an eventual restaurant comeback. Strangely, that means that it both is and isn't one of those famous "Shark Tank" companies that don't exist anymore.

Unfortunately, OatMeals' social media has been dormant since 2022, with its Instagram's last update dating to March of that year. Its last Facebook post was also made on the same date. The company's Twitter hasn't posted anything new since December 2018, on the date the company appeared on "Shark Tank," and its Pinterest board hasn't been updated in years.

While the future of OatMeals remains up in the air, Sam Stephens seems to be dedicated to keeping the company's legacy alive while continuing to work for other businesses in the private sector. She remains Quaker Oatmeal's creative oatmeal officer, according to her LinkedIn profile, and she started work at Alliance Marketing Partners as a director of mobile marketing in June 2021, after the New York City OatMeals location was closed. She also has kept OatMeals listed as an active business on her LinkedIn page and herself marked as its owner and a chef at the business, which may bode well for the company's fate. And Stephens continues to update her personal Instagram.

Whether Stephens should have gone with Barbara Corcoran's offer over Lori Greiner's entreaty or not, it appears that OatMeals' brick-and-mortar locations have gone the way of the dodo — but as any fan of "Shark Tank" knows, the winds of fate can blow through the fields of barley and change a business' fate at any time.