Specialty’s Cafe & Bakery, a Pleasanton-based chain that had locations around the West Coast, including one near the Pleasant Hill BART station in Walnut Creek, announced it is going out of business after 33 years.
The last day of operation will be Tuesday, the company said in an announcement posted Sunday on its website.
“Current market conditions attributed to COVID-19 and shelter-in-place policies have decimated company revenues,” the chain said in its post.
Offerings at Specialty’s included soup, salad, sandwiches, baked goods and a coffee bar.
In the Bay Area it had eight locations in San Francisco, three in San Mateo County, eight in Santa Clara County, four in Alameda County and one in Contra Costa County.
photo credit: yelp.com
One of many to come, newsom’s legacy.
Oh please, what would the alternative be? Let people die so an already failing business survive a little longer? Specialty already gave up on competing with Panera and decided to focus on just catering for companies. I’ve had Specialty catering many times and the food is mediocre. The only thing worth having from them was their cookies and maybe their soup. Also, for the price they charged, there is a reason why my company stopped using them.
Also, hate to break it to you. The one that will be blamed in all this is Trump’s poor and mixed response to all of this. People are going to remember that the Federal government completely failed and that it was only thanks to the various Governors that this didn’t become worse than it was. Now, we have to hope that there isn’t a 2nd wave that closes everything up again. That’s not to mention that rural areas are only now getting hit by the virus. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/07/as-states-reopen-covid-19-is-spreading-into-even-more-trump-counties/
With that said, I feel bad for the workers of Specialty’s. I hope that they will be able to find other work. I know it’s going to be hard as long as we are unable to go back full time. Sadly, this virus doesn’t give a crap about the economy. We are easing back to work, but it won’t go back to being normal until we either have a vaccine or we have herd immunity (which we don’t know can happen with this virus).
KingOfC, … your post speaks for itself.
Businesses have fixed costs that don’t magically go away because a governor shuts down a state. Insurance, utilities, business loan payments, etc.
Square footage and number of tables is a big factor to being a successful food based retail business. Social distancing requirements for many food establishments equals business failure.
Lets say each of the eight locations employed 10 people, that’s eighty people out of work and how many will end up homeless? How many of those 80 will be unable to find work as more businesses fail, putting even more people out of work?
For each job lost there are three to five others effected, delivery persons, those providing services, those selling them food, etc.
newsom’s legacy hopefully will be viewed as culmination of decades of anti business policies by progressive liberals running CA and will END any chances of a future presidential bid. Last thing world needs is another liberal WIMP air head president.
Unfortunately there are in this state far too many who lack even a rudimentary knowledge of economics or business.
They care more about what some overly endowed, bubble butt air heads on TV are obsessing over and how many signal bars their mobile device has, than they do about being informed voters and responsible members of society.
This business closing is no more of a Covid casuality than than the random 82 year old who got the flu this year but officially died of the “virus”.
We should be holding our fear mongering media responsible for much of the devastation of the “virus”. If there is no way to hold them accountable, we should just turn them off.
Hate to break it to you, But who wanted to close the borders and who wanted No / Zero Borders?
Who wanted to stop all incoming flights and who claimed that it would be “RACIST” to do such a thing???
Please Stop being stoopid. (misspelled intentionally).
@Pyrrhus
Any news source referring to portions of the population as “Trump counties” should be immediately suspect.
The people is those counties are just that,”people” and not mere demographics used to foment political decisiveness.
@ Anon
Please give me that information. Don’t be stoopid ….
And to safe you some time, no Trump didn’t want to stop “all incoming flights”, as a matter of fact he wanted to stop entry of foreigners, but let many categories of travelers still enter the US. I guess he was afraid that only foreigners could bring the infection into the US, Now what’s the word of being afraid of foreigners? Right, xenophobic.
* divisiveness
Thanks, Gavin! Hope everyone is enjoying their three month dose of liberalism run amok. The economic destruction wrought by liberal “Governors” will not soon be forgotten.
Gavin? What? … this business was doomed anyway. Gavin is saving our butts. Thank goodness! Gavin is a rockstar. I am extremely great full for his efforts throughout this pandemic.
I’m pretty sure that ilovepopcorn is actually Nancy Pelosi.
I feel that a closure of all non-essential businesses really was a far push. Instead, have businesses perform on an appoint. bases. We can have 50 people in a grocery store but not a couple people in a barber shop? smh
Another one bites the dust, remember this in November.
Oh no not Specialty’s we must rebuild
How many jobs are affected by this? The owners, managers, servers, kitchen help, suppliers, manufactures, sales reps, farmers, farm hands, truck drivers,
delivery persons, possibly a janitorial service, and the list goes on. When a business is forced to close it affects more than just the owner.
Remember this on election day, vote out Newsom and every Dem in office, especially the incumbents.
Chipping away of small business. This didn’t have to happen.
Thank you Comrade Newsom! We cannot have free thinking businesses like this(sarcasm intended)
Wow. I live in WC.
Didn’t know it was here.
If near PH Bart, must be in one of the office buildings.
Just looked it up.
Opened in Treat Towers in 2015.
33 years and couldn’t wait one more day? Pretty much everything is open now. Sucks for them.
If they can’t survive tells me many more will follow. The CEO of OpenTable said 25% will go out of business.
Why isn’t Newsom providing some form of business relief, like payroll tax reduction, This way they businesses could re-forecast and they might consider staying in business. These businesses have been hit hard with minimum wage increases, etc. with already thin margins… they close as the future looks bleak.
More jobs lost, more state revenue lost, and more businesses to follow. Newsom really screwed up. Sign the recall petition ! We need new leadership.
This SIP has got to stop. What happened to flattening the curve. Is this an exercise in eliminating the curve at all cost. So many more are suffering, domestic violence, child abuse, mental health, unemployment and all the other medical issueS going unchecked because people are not seeing Doctors.
The Blue Flu claims another business.
How many more businesses will Newsom’s phased plan that is planned in phases kill this week?
OPEN UP CONTRA COSTA COUNTY!
I always made an effort to visit Specialty’s whenever I was in SF. Had no idea there was a location in Walnut Creek!
It’s sad, but unfortunately, we’re going to see more businesses close across the globe due to this pandemic. You can’t stop everything and not have a major economic impact. Even as restrictions ease, not everyone is going to rush out and start spending again. It’s going to take a while. We can already see that the supply chain is a little messed up. Visit any store or try to buy certain items online. Some business are going to struggle for a while. Items sourced globally are going to be impacted. Energy. .. banks… mortgages/rentals…. restaurants…. travel… events… all are going to have issues. A lot of people are likely going to lose their jobs. This is only the beginning. Meanwhile, we still have a pandemic going on that will also affect people.
So you all think we should have opened up during this COVID-19 spread? You actually blame the government? No…blame the virus. Deal with the reality instead of the fake sunshine your President, who by the way lives for more money and could care less about our health or well being. Instead why don’t you move outa here. If Gavin runs again he will win so deal with it. Sick of ignorance.
You must not be too sick of ignorance. The president who you say “lives for more money” has lost wealth since announcing his candidacy in 2015. But facts don’t matter because orange man bad.
It’s not the pandemic that’s causing businesses to close. It’s Newsom’s failed policies, it’s the media’s fear mongering, and it’s the health department’s self appointed, power grabbing, so-called experts.
It’s a disease, an illness. Some diseases are more contagious than others. People get sick from diseases every day, most recover, some die, The COVID-19 isn’t any different, of those that get sick, most will recover, some will die. It’s the cycle of life.
Teufelhunden528 – how so? His hotels are reportedly more popular than ever and he’s even getting paid when he travels to Mira Lago with all that security, support staff, etc. We have no idea if that claim is accurate because he hasn’t disclosed any financials.
These businesses could not adapt to a change in the market, plain and simple. Plenty of restaurants offered take out and delivery. We took advantage when we could afford to in order to support our favorite businesses. For the retailers, they’ve been closing up shop for a few years now.. thank you Amazon.
Some companies are shifting to a work at home model due to the cost of office space and building in the Bay Area. The bubble is bursting and it is sad for the employees who’s employers cared more about their bottom line & profits than they did their employees.
Perhaps if more businesses moved out of California it would actually be affordable to live here and those that can stay employed will have some breathing room. Maybe the money those companies made of their tax cuts should have been saved for a rainy day… isn’t that what you usual tell us “liberals”?
When did flatten the curve become find a cure?
Recall Newsome! He says he is now worried about a possible third wave!
Newsome needs a good swift kick in the ass out of office.
The common flu has killed more people this year by a huge margin than Covd-19. To all of you progressives who continue to fall off the cliff with your demigods, perhaps it is time to consider an alternative truth. You are not voting for the betterment of society, but you are electing despots to dictate to you what you can and cannot do. History will laugh at this slow response in reopening after the typical flu season has ended in April. Why did Tesla open up? The Will of the People!
Tesla opened because Elon has $$$$ and power. The “people” had nothing to do with that!
So youre telling me the flu has killed more than 90,000 people this year? By a large margin? Thats funny, because what im reading is that covid is killing up to 20 times more people a week than the flu durjng the deadliest flu season. Where are you getting your i formation?
I don’t understand why there is so much blame on Newsom. Even if he acted incorrectly (which he didn’t IMO), he is the governor of one state. Other states shut down too, so let’s blame all the governors? CA’s early shut down may have had a major role in why we are not currently looking like NY.
And so many of you are commenting that you didn’t even know there was a Specialty’s in WC, so maybe we should blame Specialty’s for bad marketing.
I’m very sad about Specialty’s because I love their wheat germ chocolate chip cookies but I can say from experience that their Montgomery location was very poorly run and they didn’t care when pigeons hung out inside.
Obviously the SIP didn’t help, but I think the closing had more to do with the new business reality after COVID-19. Their business model was big on catering business meetings. I have hardly been to a meeting in downtown SF or the South Bay without any of their caterings.
I think even after the SIP is lifted there will be much more work from home and meetings with MS Teams or Zoom than before, thus their business model would have been severely impacted.
I think this chain was more popular over in the San Jose- Santa Clara area. I used to go there a lot, when I worked in San Jose, and it was always crowded. Sad to see so many places going out of business.
The idea that the governor would want to hurt businesses in his state is laughable you guys are so dumb. Typical republican BS.
Gavin has won at the expense of hard workers, implementing impossible rules to be successful. The sad thing is his socialist leftist ideas have left the state on the brink of financial collapse and millions out if work. Even crazier the people will still vote him in again. People have not figured out we don’t have the money he wants to spend, he will have no choice than to tax the living crap out of us. We got what we voted for.
Sad to see all the republican vs. democrat banter in here that is literally on every thread. Our country lacks unity .. it’s very sad and both sides are equally guilty. It is sad to see another business go under… I love Specialty’s and will greatly miss their cookies.
Mike, I tend to agree with you, not sure if both sides are equally guilty, but certainly there are faults on both sides, and I don’t see a strong leader that is willing or capable of trying to bridge the divide.
One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite politician goes like this: What we need in the United States is not division, is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but wisdom and compassion towards one another.
This paragraph I’m paraphrasing: So I ask you to say a prayer for our country, which all of us love, a prayer for understanding and compassion of which I spoke.
Robert F. Kennedy (on the night Martin Luther King was killed)
Just a few excerpts from the speech he gave that night.
How I long for any politician of either party that could speak with such eloquence and compassion.
Schmeee or whatever Do you leftests even understand your own ideology that you support? You vote for people that bring socialism … shutting down small businesses and making people dependent on the government is socialism. It makes complete sense they are going to delay opening up as long as they can to break as many successful businesses possible to create government dependency. By the way what’s going on in California reminds me of Paris in the 1870‘s. Look up what was going on at that time it’s eerily similar minus the bloodshed.
So please elaborate how whats going on now is “eerily similar” to the Siege of Paris. Without the bloodshed, that is………..
@billcutting maybe before asking someone else if they know what they believe you should brush up on your economic theories. “Making people depend on the government is socialism” is actually a completely false statement. Socialism by definition is
a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. What you are describing is actually called Oligarchy (Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, education, corporate, religious, political, or military control.)
So actually socialism is the opposite of what you are saying it is. In socialism the people have all the power. Each vote counts as one and majority rules. The community as a whole makes a decision. Everyone has their basic needs met because the community pulls together and creates a safe place for everyone. If we were a socialist country right now and you didn’t want to wear a mask or stay 6feet away from others because you think this is stupid, you could go to a community that agrees with you and we wouldn’t have to worry about, or listen to your uneducated rant. Maybe during this SIP you could spend some time educating your self on your beliefs, turn to the actual dictionary for a definition of a word instead a very right winged source like Fox News or a left one like CNN. The world would be a better place if people took the time to research for themselves and understand what they are actually saying when debating with another person.
If California hadn’t shut down, where would we be today? In the most populated areas– San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, Santa Clara etc, there would have been many people infected and a much larger death toll. The result? People would panic, and stay inside on their own. They would be less people shopping. Our hospitals could have been overwhelmed. Luckily they weren’t. Events would have been shutdown anyway, outside of California control— sports and concerts. People would have stopped going to the movies. Restaurants would have taken a hit no matter what.
If you have too many people sick at a workplace, what happens? You likely can’t operate.
Businesses that operate on razor thin margins wouldn’t survive.
We’re facing an unprecedented global crisis.
Spare me the drama. All nonsense. Your speculation is based off complete garbage media induced propaganda. The media programmed every bit of your response. The fear and paranoia needs to stop.
My company has been in operation for 200 years, and for the first time we are laying off people by the thousands and pulling the plug on many of our sites. We have had 12 employees commit suicide in the past 3 weeks. So seems you missed the human aspect of this and took the political socialist high road
Too bad that all of the people complaining about the closure didn’t do enough take-outs from the business for them to survive.
When push came to shove their customers and the “Reopen People” bonded this and so many other local businesses.
Very sad that so many complain but then did nothing to help.
I have never heard of this chain, not that means much, there are of course many eating establishment I have never heard of. However, judging from comments here is sounds like it was a company that already had some trouble. One person that lives in this area didn’t know they were local, thought they were only in San Francisco, It sounds like they should have done more advertising, it also sounds like the quality of their food was not top notch.
I think one reason Starbucks are so successful, is one know exactly what to expect, I been to a few where the service is slow (one in Fremont, when I commuted to Palo Alto for work) but the quality of the coffee, food etc, is the same. When my cousin and her husband visited from Denmark several years ago, we toured much of Northern California, Carmel, Wine Country, Tahoe, Yosemite, Marin, we like to stop for coffee and a snack in the afternoon, she was very impressed with the cleanliness and quality of the products, and no matter where we were it was the same. Keep in mind this is someone has comes from a country that is known for their pastries.