Three years after Starbucks (SBUX) bought the La Boulange baked-goods brand to bolster its food offerings, the coffee giant is closing the 23 pastry shops that came with it to focus on expanding the brand in house. La Boulange’s pastries and breakfast sandwiches have been central to the growth of Starbucks’s food sales. But running the separate La Boulange stores, located mostly in San Francisco, has become a distraction, according to Cliff Burrows, Starbucks group president for the U.S. Starbucks acquired La Boulange parent company Bay Bread in 2012 for $100 million, seeking to bolster a food-product menu that had drawn customer complaints for lacking quality and consistency. Starbucks reported that food sales grew 16% in the quarter ended March 29 versus the prior-year period and that sales of breakfast sandwiches rose 35%. At the time of the acquisition, Starbucks said it planned to open more La Boulange cafes in major U.S. cities.
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