Starbucks bought San Francisco bakery chain La Boulange in 2012 for $100 million, to much grumbling from their underwhelmed customers. Now, the company says they're closing all stores and reverting to an in-house food brand. Because change is scary, customers are complaining:
Starbucks spokespeople say the company found running La Boulange's 23 bakeries to no longer be sustainable, and the coffee giant plans to shutter all locations, along with two manufacturing plants that supply the bakeries, by September. The company's statement adds that Starbucks' "goals to grow its food business and deliver an incremental $2 billion in the next five years in the U.S. are unchanged."
Fortune points out that La Boulange is just the latest casualty Starbucks has left in its wake. In the past few years, the company has bought Teavana, Evolution Fresh, Seattle's Best, and Hacienda Alsacia, a coffee farm in Costa Rica. It has since shut down Seattle's Best stores, and plans to shutter its Evolution Fresh store in San Francisco.
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