Corbeaux bakehouse closes its doors on november 28

[taco.vidal]

Not surprised. OK concept, wrong location.

From their blog:


CORBEAUX BAKEHOUSE CLOSES ITS DOORS ON NOVEMBER 28

It is with heavy hearts that we have to announce the closure of our Corbeaux Bakehouse, effective Saturday, November 28th. We know that this sudden closure will come as a shock to our customers and the Calgary community at large, but it is a business decision that has been weighing on us for some time. We opened the Bakehouse 11 months ago with a bold vision to house a world-class bakery and sit-down restaurant in a single location, but in reality, that business model was not suited for such a large premium location. Continuing on is just not financially feasible for our company.




and

http://calgaryherald.com/life/food/c...se-shuts-doors

[HarryH93]

That sucks. Although it was pricey, it was a nice place to go to occasionally and have some amazing dessert with a drink. Can't say I'm surprised though. I wonder what comes next.

[Firebot]

The food was pretty poor...as much as the place was nice, most of the stuff they had was super greasy and certainly did not meet what would be expected of a bakehouse. Still sucks to see it go as it was a breath of fresh air in Calgary.

[calgarywinning]

The food and service were lacklustre. Had some sketchy experiences there.

[driveway]

They must have opened and closed since I've left Calgary, but the Fratello guys I know quite well, they do great coffee roasting and have actually custom-built some amazing espresso machines. I'm pretty sure ... whatever the heck it's called: Bell and Sebastian? In Marda Loop has one of their "Slayer" espresso machines which are just amazing.

Simply looking at their menu and website, it looks like they were trying to do too much. A high-class bakery and breakfast/lunch/dinner restaurant and coffee shop and a catering business and a cake shop.

I imagine the rent in that location is tremendous, which would force the business to try to stay open as many hours as possible to try to generate the revenue, but that increases labour and operating costs at the same time and you just end up with ... what looks like something that started as a great idea: Let's open a really good bakery; and totally snowballed on them.

Regardless, the Fratello guys are great, I wish them luck in the future with their coffee business.

[JiriHrdina]

Sounds like they had a flawed model from the get go.

[tete]

I really liked their baking - some of the best croissants in town, but the restaurant was so busy that we didn't try to go very often, since with a toddler in tow, we're not good at waiting if there was a line. We live within walking distance of it, but I think we only had meals there twice. (I also had an objection to them serving $10 wine in duralux glasses, but that's the picky person in me).

[calumniate]

That patio seemed excessive for a bakery to have. The space certainly didn't work too well for melrose and it looked like they had left the patio 'as is'. What surprised me most was how popular it seemed to be overall though. Surprised they have to shut the doors

[driveway]

A huge problem with restaurants ... probably the huge problem is the margin. Restaurants typically run sub 10% profit margins. Being busy can, in fact, exacerbate this problem. The busier you are, the more food you're pumping through the kitchen, which increases your costs both in terms of ingredients and in terms of labour needed to cook the food. To say nothing of the utility costs, appliances, etc. etc. If there is significant food wastage you start to get yourself really into trouble.

Then, if you're busy, you need to staff up the front-of-house because service needs to be of a certain quality, again, increasing labour costs.

In the case of this particular business, they're also running a bakery: baker's hours start at like three or four in the morning and run to ten or eleven. So now you've got staff in the building, running the power, getting paid, and you're not actually making any revenue. This pushes the pressure up to make that revenue back in other areas: increased liquor sales is one of the easiest places to increase your margin, but this means now you need to be open for 'drinking hours' and present yourself as the kind of place where people would feel comfortable drinking... which starts to pull you away from the initial idea of 'bakery'.

From a complete outsider's perspective, what it looks like is a good idea "awesome bakery!" which ran into a blessing/curse: "we got this amazing 17th street location!" and ultimately realized that one thing or the other had to go, and chose to get rid of the location, but keep doing the bakery stuff within the company.

Restaurants are fascinating businesses and no one ever should ever open one. They are always, always a terrible idea.

[troutman]

Never heard of it. Was that the problem?

Or, the rent is too damn high.

[InglewoodFan]

A friend of my wife's compiled a list of places that have gone under since late 2014. The downturn is definitely hurting the local dining scene

Bistro 2210
Black Betty
Blowfish Sushi Lounge
Brava Bistro
Cafe Artegiano (both new locations in Britiannia & Mission)
Candela Lounge
Chicago Chophouse
Corbeaux Bakehouse (still around as a bakery that will supply to the Analog cafes in town)
downtownfood
El Dorado
Gallo Winebar
Grate and Barrel (though now looking for a new location)
*Hooters (both locations)
Il Sogno
*The Keg (beltline on 11th, yes a chain, but this location was well known)
Korq Wine Bar
The Loop
*Mission Diner (not so much a closure as a rebranding to Grate & Barrel)
Moxie's (on 17th, chain restaurant, but this location was well known)
PoBoys Diner (just opened and closed in same month)
Rush Ocean Prime
*Tilted Kilt (double closure in same location, 501 Bar opened and closed there in a few months as well)
The Unicorn

[tete]

Wow, I didn't realize that Artigiano closed both of those locations.

Where was that PoBoys Diner? I vaguely recall something about it - did it open (and close) recently?

There was also that pizza place on 17th Ave SW, between 8th and 9th St, whose name is escaping me right now - it's now Rattle and Hum Local Bar. It was open only a year, I think.

ETA: Bensonhurst Pizza.

[InglewoodFan]

Originally Posted by tete

Wow, I didn't realize that Artigiano closed both of those locations.

Where was that PoBoys Diner? I vaguely recall something about it - did it open (and close) recently?

There was also that pizza place on 17th Ave SW, between 8th and 9th St, whose name is escaping me right now - it's now Rattle and Hum Local Bar. It was open only a year, I think.

Po' Boys took over the spot Blind Beggar had at Macleod and 50th after Blind Beggar moved to the old Hooters location. Need to check out the new BB, always liked that place.

[Regular_John]

I feel like Grate and Barrel was open for all of 2 weeks? Mission Diner was closed, saw some tweets about Grate and Barrel in the space... and then closed.

The wife and I used to really enjoy Cafe Artegiano in Britiannia, sad to see it close.

501 (tilted kilt) was just plain odd, I tried to find some info online about it after they opened and there was nothing. Like nothing nothing. A single twitter account with no tweets, so not surprised it closed.

But yeah, it feels like the last 6-8 weeks have been particularly brutal for closures in the local restaurant industry.

[topfiverecords]

Other closures...Borgo and Petite. I think that Rattle and Hum closed too.

[totti_07]

Wow, I had no idea about Artigiano either. When did they close?

[calumniate]

There's a place that opened up next to fiores (not the Thai place, but the one that took over the old schwarma shop). I think it will get the fastest closure award. Apparently they're licenced but it looks terrible and I've never seen anyone in it!

[Hack&Lube]

I've been looking into opening a restaurant business with some partners but the outlook right now is pretty bleak.

What happens in the case of these establishments who probably signed a 3-5 year lease? Hopefully they have a graceful exit clause to break lease and aren't on the hook.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by InglewoodFan

A friend of my wife's compiled a list of places that have gone under since late 2014. The downturn is definitely hurting the local dining scene

Restaurants always have a high failure rate. It would be interesting to know if there are more failures now than average.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by InglewoodFan

A friend of my wife's compiled a list of places that have gone under since late 2014. The downturn is definitely hurting the local dining scene

Bistro 2210
Black Betty
Blowfish Sushi Lounge
Brava Bistro
Cafe Artegiano (both new locations in Britiannia & Mission)
Candela Lounge
Chicago Chophouse
Corbeaux Bakehouse (still around as a bakery that will supply to the Analog cafes in town)
downtownfood
El Dorado
Gallo Winebar
Grate and Barrel (though now looking for a new location)
*Hooters (both locations)
Il Sogno
*The Keg (beltline on 11th, yes a chain, but this location was well known)
Korq Wine Bar
The Loop
*Mission Diner (not so much a closure as a rebranding to Grate & Barrel)
Moxie's (on 17th, chain restaurant, but this location was well known)
PoBoys Diner (just opened and closed in same month)
Rush Ocean Prime
*Tilted Kilt (double closure in same location, 501 Bar opened and closed there in a few months as well)
The Unicorn

When did Il Sogno go under?

I remember when that place was one of the best places to eat in Calgary.

I heard it went down hill a bit after the original owner sold.