Craig Blum and Kim Diamond launched Johnny Doughnuts as a food truck in 2012, ferrying a glass display case full of raised and old-fashioned doughnuts to events around the Bay Area. It quickly became one of the region’s top artisan doughnut purveyors, and the couple scaled up ambitiously: opening seven shops, including two this summer.
But all of that expansion came at a price, said Blum, cofounder and CEO. On Monday, Johnny Doughnuts announced that half its existing six locations will close on Monday: in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, Santa Rosa and Santana Row in San Jose — the latter only open just over four months. The closures will result in the layoffs of 34 employees. Stores in San Rafael, Larkspur and Napa, the newest outpost, will remain open, as will the company’s mobile events and catering business.
“We expanded too quickly,” Blum told the Chronicle. “The business couldn’t support all these operations going forward.”…