Third Culture Bakery, home of mochi treats and other sweets, will close its San Francisco location citing difficulty finding and keeping employees.
“Despite our steady growth at this new location, we have faced persistent challenges in finding and retaining experienced team members,” the owners said in the social media post.
The difficulties “caused a strain” on the bakery’s existing store operations and overall well-being, the owners said. The company doesn’t “anticipate an improvement in this situation in the near future,” and has sold the location to Momo Teas, another business owned by Asian Americans, the company added.
Other San Francisco businesses to leave the city in the past two years have reported a marked drop in foot traffic and a rise in open drug use, homelessness, and crime, prompting them to pull up stakes.
Mr. Butarbutar and Mr. Shyu opened the company in Berkeley in 2016, offering bakery items, foods, and drinks inspired by their upbringing as kids growing up in a culture different from their parents’, they said on the company’s website.
These recipes include pastries that remind them of their childhoods in Indonesia and Taiwan, including a mochi muffin.
They hoped to spark cultural conversations and dialogues while symbolizing diversity, inclusiveness, and acceptance with their food.
The bakery is also focusing on starting matcha and tea workshops and factory tours out of its Berkeley headquarters, and organizing group tea tours to Taiwan, the owners said.
Third Culture Bakery will continue operating its Walnut Creek outlet, about 25 miles northeast of San Francisco.
