Amy’s Kitchen, the organic food company best known for its frozen vegetarian meals, is closing its last remaining Amy’s Drive Thru fast-food restaurant in California, effectively ending its short-lived push into the quick-service restaurant space. The final location, in Rohnert Park, is scheduled to close in March 2026, marking a quiet exit from a concept the company once described as a bold alternative to traditional fast food.
From frozen aisle to drive-thru window
Amy’s Drive Thru launched with big ambitions: a fully vegetarian, largely organic fast-food chain offering burgers, burritos, fries, and milkshakes made with the same ingredients found in Amy’s packaged foods. The first drive-thru opened in 2015, followed by additional locations in Northern California over the next several years.
The concept drew early attention for its emphasis on sustainability, higher-quality ingredients, and plant-forward menus — a welcomed contrast to conventional fast-food chains. However, expansion remained limited, and several locations closed over time as the company reassessed the model.
Rising costs and operational challenges
The closure comes amid broader pressures facing California’s restaurant industry. Operators across the state are grappling with higher labor costs, higher rent, rising ingredient prices, and tighter consumer spending. California’s fast-food wage increase, which raised the minimum pay for many workers, has intensified cost challenges for labor-heavy concepts like drive-thrus.
Unlike Amy’s frozen food business, which benefits from scale, distribution efficiency, and grocery demand, operating brick-and-mortar restaurants requires constant staffing, real estate costs, and narrow profit margins. Industry analysts note that even well-known brands have struggled to make fast-casual and drive-thru concepts profitable in the current environment.
Part of a larger restructuring story
The fast-food closure also follows a period of workforce reductions and restructuring at Amy’s Kitchen more broadly. In recent years, the company has laid off employees at manufacturing facilities and corporate offices as it responded to shifting demand, supply-chain challenges, and rising production costs…