Crumbs sweet success short-lived
Crumbs (CRMB) Bake Shop seems to be a casualty of the cupcake wars. The once popular cupcake chain closed all 48 of its stores on Monday.
"Regrettably Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options," the company said in a statement to the The Wall Street Journal. A spokeswoman told the Journal those “options” include filing for bankruptcy.
It’s a sad ending for the company which fed the appetite of the cupcake craze. The first Crumbs opened its doors March 2003 on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, and the company then went public in 2011. However, Crumbs sweet success turned sour over the past couple of years as sales suffered. Crumbs reported a loss of $18.2 million last year, which came on top of a $10.3 million loss in 2012. The stock once traded at $13 a share, but fell below $0.30 last month and was de-listed from the Nasdaq last week.
“It was never a well run business, never really much of growth business,” said Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli. Any business going up against the Dunkin' Donuts (DNKN) and Starbucks (SBUX) of the world really needs to have something different he said.
Crumbs had 165 full-time employees and 655 part-time workers as of the end of last year.
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