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Crumbs bake shops close

Company shuttered its more than 60 locations nationwide

By Updated
The Crumbs bake shop, corner of Jesup Road and Taylor Place, has closed as part of the company's decision to close all 60 of its outlets.
The Crumbs bake shop, corner of Jesup Road and Taylor Place, has closed as part of the company's decision to close all 60 of its outlets.File photo

Crumbs Bake Shop on Monday notified employees that it was closing its stores for good.

Efforts to reach company officials Tuesday were unsuccessful. Some store employees at its Stamford and Westport locations, however, were still at the stores finalizing paperwork one day after the cupcake company shuttered its more than 60 locations nationwide.

Matthew Mandell, executive director and president of the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce, said it's a shame when the state of national companies affects individual and successful outlets.

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"I'm not sure that this was a Westport cost issue," he said. "I think the business was doing very well here in town."

The company also has stores in the Danbury Fair mall and on Greenwich's West Putnam Avenue.

The closing came just one week after Crumbs was delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market on July 1.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the action was taken due to a failure to comply with the required $2.5 million stockholders' equity, coupled with insufficient profit and because "the market value of its listed equity securities must be at least $35 million."

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In a May filing, the cupcake operator predicted it could be forced to cease its operations if it did not "generate sufficient cash flows to fund operations."

In the filing, it reported a cash flow of just $300,601 at the end of this year's first quarter, down from $2.8 million in the same quarter last year.

The company's website was taken down about noon Tuesday.

The gourmet cupcake company was established in 2003 in Manhattan's Upper West Side. It went public in 2011. Its large cupcakes, which featured flavors such as blackbottom cheesecake, egg nog and peppermint hot cocoa, sold for more than $3 each.

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The company grew quickly, going from roughly 30 locations in 2010 to nearly 80 last year. As of March, it had 65 locations in 12 states and the District of Columbia.

That month, it announced that despite opening one store in the fourth quarter of 2013, it had closed another nine stores in that time. Six more stores were closed in the first three months of 2014, with more planned closings by year's end.

ktorres@ctpost.com, 203-330-6321, http://twitter.com/ktorresbpt

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Keila Torres Ocasio is the managing editor of the Connecticut Post. Keila grew up in Bridgeport and started her career as reporter for the Connecticut Post in 2008. She has since worked as a reporter, columnist then editor for various Hearst Connecticut newspapers. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree in Global Media and Communications from the University of Bridgeport.