La Boulange Palo Alto set to close Sept. 3

Stupid, Starbucks. Just stupid.

"--rumors are swirling that the founder of La Boulange, Pascal Rigo, is in talks with Starbucks to re-open several of the San Francisco cafes under a new name and new menu."

And the probability of this nearly zero, given that thwarting competition is the reason they are closing them to begin with.

Of course, on Castro Street Le Boulanger serves Peets and has better pastries and sandwiches... with a Starbucks footsteps away.

OH NO - Love La Boulange!!!!!

Loved La boulange ... Hate Starbucks.

Its like Microsoft buying and shutting down promising startups. What a tragedy!

La Boulange has been one of the few businesses that has made the quirky Palo Alto University Ave. space work. Hopefully another food-related business or cafe will take over the location and continue the current configuration.

To clarify, the closure of Starbucks' "La Boulange" in no way will result in the closure of the "Le Boulanger" bakery cafes. Just letting people know that in case they were wondering... :)

I'm glad it's not Le Boulanger on Santa Cruz that is closing. As for La Boulange being closed by Starbucks, that was obviously the goal when Starbucks bought it: eliminate the competition. Too compete effectively, all Starbucks needed to do was offer comparable or better quality.

oops not 'too' but to compete. Almanac how about having the ability to edit a comment?

Maybe Le Boulanger would be interested in the space. Hint, hint.

I wonder if Starbucks will bring back their original pumpkin scone. I miss that.

Does anyone know if the La Boulange in Sunnyvale (the one on Matilda) will also close? That is a great cafe and bakery!

@Nayeli:

The article states "Starbucks is beginning this week phased closures of all 23 La Boulange cafes throughout the Bay Area."

The one in Sunnyvale will close shortly.

@Reader, @Nayeli

->Le Boulanger<- in Sunnyvale is NOT closing. It is the unrelated ->La Boulange<- chain which only has locations in Palo Alto and Burlingame which is being shut down.

Sorry meant to say only has *nearby* locations in Palo Alto and Burlingame. The other La Boulange locations are in Marin, SF, and the East Bay.

@fwiw:

Thanks for the clarification. I was surprised to hear that there was a La Boulange in Sunnyvale and your observation that this is a Le Boulanger store makes far more sense (I don't get to Sunnyvale often).

Plus, La Boulange is almost as forgettable as Le Boulanger as a bakery cafe chain.

The name confusion in the comments above is the predictable side effect of a far newer (and yet, already closing) bakery chain -- La Boulange -- taking a name very close to that of an existing, long-established, unrelated local (family-owned) bakery chain in the peninsula and south bay -- Le Boulanger -- and expanding into its territory.

Actually, I'm surprised that this name duplication didn't cause even more confusion.

The URL provided about "swirling rumors" (Web Link) didn't work for me. Could be on a new URL or (always a possibility..) my error. Starbuck's is "what it is" but compliments out to the University Avenue baristas for making a consistently good wet cap! ;)

Here are URLs to various sites about the possibility of some of the La Boulange locations being reopened under a new name; the stories are all based on the the same rumor:

Web Link
Web Link
Web Link

This is not the first time the rumor has been mentioned. The possibility of some stores remaining as a new chain was mentioned when Starbucks first announced the impending shutdown of the La Boulange cafe chain back in April.

Clearly, Starbucks is motivated to divest itself of these 23 properties. It does make sense to sell some/all of these properties as a group to another organization rather then sell them piecemeal individually.

La Boulange founder Pascal Rigo is no longer with Starbucks, and without a doubt, he is well aware of which stores performed the strongest. Thus, he could select 6-7 of the best performing La Boulange stores and offer to take them off of Starbucks' hands, leaving the coffee giant the remaining 16-17 properties left to deal with instead of 23.

Service at La Boulange on University was terrible... I stopped going there, so I won't miss them much.

As rumored, Pascal Rigo is reopening six shuttered La Boulange stores (all in San Francisco) as La Boulangerie de San Francisco.

SFGate article: Web Link

The first to open will be the original Pine Street store in Pacific Heights, with additional stores reopening about one per month.

There was no indication that Rigo would be reopening any stores outside of San Francisco