Crumbs Closes Up Shop at Mall in Columbia

There are no more Crumbs left.

Crumbs Bakery—known for its large cupcakes in flavors like peanut butter cup, princess and brownie—has reportedly closed up shop in Columbia, Towson and White Marsh, along with more than 40 other locations nationwide. The company shuttered its locations around the country by the close of business Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Will you miss Crumbs at The Mall in Columbia? Tell us in the comments!

The business wasn't making enough to offset its operating costs as of late June, according to The New York Times, which reported Nasdaq delisted it July 1 because it failed to maintain $2.5 million in shareholder equity.

Crumbs had been crumbling for some time, after it went public in 2011; the business opened in 2003, according to its website.

Going public wasn't so sweet. Crumbs posted losses of $18.2 million last year and $10.3 million in 2012, according to The New York Times, which noted Crumbs opened in upscale areas where the cupcake market was already saturated. 

Businessweek attributed the problem to Crumbs opening stores too close together so they competed against one another and, in article published in April, reported the company had closed 17 locations since 2013.

A consumer expert told Forbes the fall of Crumbs was tied to its reliance on one product—"ginormous caloric bomb cupcakes"—when companies need to reinvent and expand their offerings, like Starbucks does, to keep customers engaged.

On Monday, Crumbs provided the following statement to the Wall Street Journal: “Regrettably, Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its devoted employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options."

The company had 655 part-time employees and 165 full-time staff at the end of last year, according to WJZ. It was not immediately available how many employees in Maryland would be impacted.

As for its other options, Crumbs has been considering other revenue streams, such as putting its name on coffee and baking products—for example, it launched a croissant/donut called the "Crumbnut" at BJ's last fall, according to Businessweek.

It also partnered with Dippin' Dots to put Crumb cupcakes in the Dippin' Dots flagship store in Colorado, according to an announcement in March.

"I don’t know that cupcakes by themselves are a big enough classification to run a substantial business on," Crumbs CEO Ed Slezak told Businessweek. "We’re modifying and retuning our objectives from opening stores to a franchise model..."