After 19 years in business at the corner of Imperial Highway and South Brea Boulevard, Corner Bakery in Brea will close its doors for good at 2 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17. The company’s most recent closure hasn’t affected other nearby Corner Bakery locations in Santa Ana and Irvine, which remain open.
A team member at the Brea location confirmed the closure to the Orange County Register.
Corner Bakery’s admittedly overwhelming menu offers a vast variety of baked goods, like bagels and cinnamon rolls to chocolate Bundt cakes and fudge brownies, to heartier fare, like shrimp scampi linguine and chicken carbonara. As consumers’ tastes changed over the years, the chain suffered revenue loss.
The fast casual chain, with 192 stores nationwide, filed for bankruptcy in late February. The struggling eatery empire racked up anywhere between $20 million and $38 million, according to Restaurant Business.
Founded in 1991, the chain was purchased by Pandya Restaurant Growth Brands in 2020 after changing hands multiple times to such corporations as Brinker International, Il Fornaio Corporation, and Roark Capital Group (which bought Il Fornaio in 2011). Once poised as a competitor to Panera Bread, Corner Bakery never found its cultural niche within the culinary lexicon of fast-casual dining à la Chili’s and Olive Garden.
This week’s shuttering opens up even more vacant space in this part of Brea; in July, the Taps brewery and restaurant empire closed all of its locations, including its inaugural space directly across the street from the shutting Corner Bakery.
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