A Popular Coffee Chain Now Makes Unexpected Closures

January 10, 2024

A beloved and popular coffee chain now makes unexpected closures, leaving its original city for good after 46 years.

Au Bon Pain began as a coffee shop in Boston, Massachusetts 46 years ago, but now its last location in the city at South Station is reportedly no longer operating, reports The-Sun.

The Boston-born coffee shop is currently owned by Ampex Brands, a Yum! Brands Inc. as of 2021.

Panera Bread bought Au Bon Pain in 2017 and then sold it.

Au Bon Pain did not officially announce that the location would be closing.

But the South Station location currently says “permanently closed” on Google.

The South Station location is also no longer listed on the Au Bon Pain website.

It is currently unclear why the location closed.

The only location left in Massachusetts is a franchise outlet at Stonehill College in Easton, according to Au Bon Pain’s website.

Au Bon Pain started in Boston in 1978 and once had multiple shops in the city.

The company was founded by Ron Shaich, the current CEO of Panera Bread, who grew it in the early 1980s.

There are currently about 175 Au Bon Pain locations across the nation.

When Yum Brands bought Au Bon Pain in 2021, it had high hopes for the future of the “legacy brand.”

It also said Au Bon Pain would increase the company’s revenue by approximately 10% annually at the time, according to the 2021 press release.

“We see a solid future for both Au Bon Pain and our broader portfolio,” Ampex CEO Tabbassum Mumtaz said in the release.

“Our QSR brands performed extraordinarily well throughout the pandemic as guests moved to drive-thru.

“That performance allowed us to diversify and jump on a great opportunity to reposition a legacy brand.

“The bakery café category will rebound, and Au Bon Pain is well-positioned to grow.”

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A massive retailer is now expanding its drone deliveries in Texas to nearly 2 million more homes, the company announced Tuesday.

Walmart is expanding its on-demand drone delivery services to a whopping 1.8 million more homes in the Texas’ Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The expansion includes stores across more than 30 towns and municipalities in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, allowing Walmart to offer drone delivery to up to 75% of the area’s population.

Customers will receive their orders via drone delivery providers Zipline and Wing, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet.

“This expansion will bring the ultimate convenience of drone delivery to communities across the DFW area,” said Prathibha Rajashekhar, Walmart U.S. senior vice president of innovation and automation, in the announcement.

“Customers will have access to a broad assortment of items from Walmart available for delivery to their home in just minutes.”

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is becoming a hotspot for Walmart’s growing drone delivery ambitions, says Supply Chain Dive.

The company launched drone services there with DroneUp in 2022, and last August it debuted its delivery offering with Wing in two area cities, reaching 60,000 homes.

Walmart said recent Federal Aviation Administration exemptions granted to both Wing and Zipline, allowing them to fly drones beyond an observer’s visual line of sight, was key in enabling further expansion in Dallas-Fort Worth.

The delivery radius for area stores providing the service will be up to 10 miles — an increase from the 6-mile range rolled out last year.

Eligible customers can order thousands of items, ranging from household essentials to groceries, through Wing and Zipline’s websites.

Wing will launch its newest drone delivery locations with Walmart in the coming months, with the expansion slated to be completed this year, CEO Adam Woodworth said in a blog post on Wing’s website.

Meanwhile, Zipline will begin integrating its drone delivery capabilities into Dallas-Fort Worth Walmart stores later this year after conducting a pilot, co-founder and CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton said in an article on Zipline’s website.

It currently offers delivery at a Walmart location in Pea Ridge, Arkansas.

“Over time, we plan to serve millions of Dallas residents with thousands of quiet, fast, precise Zipline deliveries every day,” Cliffton said.

“It will feel like teleportation.”

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