Crumbs kosher cupcake empire crumbles

NEW YORK – Crumbs, the popular New York-based cupcake chain with kosher certification, abruptly shuttered its stores across the United States.

The publicly traded company had closed a few of its 65 stores in recent months amid heavy financial losses. On Monday, Crumbs Bake Shop shut down its remaining stores.

The first Crumbs store opened on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 2003, and the company went public in 2011 with a listing on the Nasdaq exchange. At its peak, the company ran 65 stores in 12 US states.

“Regrettably Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options,” the company said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

But its stock price, which opened at $13 a share, fell quickly as the company’s earnings turned out to be crummy. This year’s first quarter losses reached about $3.8 million and in June, the stock price sank to a low of about 11 cents per share. Last week, Crumbs was delisted from Nasdaq.

Following the news of Crumbs’ closing, many observers cited it as the official end of the cupcake craze.