California doughnut chain closes half it’s stores after 13-year run

Say it ain’t dough.

California doughnut chain Johnny’s Doughnuts closed half of its six locations across the state Monday, pumping the brakes on a rapid expansion that saw the small chain add two new stores this year alone.

The closures will affect locations in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, Santa Rosa and Santana Row in San Jose, the latter of which opened just four months ago.

Thirty-four employees will be laid off in the closures, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“We expanded too quickly,” Craig Blum, co-founder and CEO of the chain, told the Chronicle. “The business couldn’t support all these operations going forward.”

Locations in San Rafael, Larkspur and Napa will remain open.

“This is not something we take lightly,” Blum continued, saying the decision to close the stores involved “many tears shed and sleepless nights.”

“We are a small company, and we’re really determined to continue to serve the communities that we’ve been involved with for so long,” he added.

Blum said the company will focus further on Marin and Napa, as those areas have their best foot traffic and strongest sales.

“Over the past couple of years, we took on more financial obligations than our business could carry,” the owners wrote in an email to customers Monday, per the Chronicle. “That’s on us.”

First launched by Blum and Kim Diamond as a food truck in 2012, Johnny’s Doughnuts focuses on classic, handcrafted doughnuts, with options including old fashioned and jelly doughnuts, apple fritters and cinnamon rolls. The chain also offers vegan and wheat-free doughnuts.

Blum and Diamond opened their first cafe location in San Rafael in 2013, followed by outposts in Hayes Valley in 2017 and at Marin Country Mart in Larkspur in 2018.

The chain — which also serves espresso, coffee, and tea — uses local ingredients including flour from Central Milling in Petaluma and dairy from Clover Dairy in Sonoma.

Johnny’s has been recognized by Thrillist, Forbes and Food Network, which named the chain one of the top 5 best doughnut shops in America.

The chain previously planned to expand to Petaluma and the East Bay, but neither location materialized.

Locations in Santa Rosa and Pacific Heights were opened in 2021 and 2022, while the Hayes Valley location shuttered in 2022. Its two newest locations, in San Jose and Napa, just opened in July and August of this year.

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