City Bakery Officially Closes After 3 Decades

UNION SQUARE, NY — It's official: City Bakery has closed after some three decades in the neighborhood.

After the celebrity bakery announced earlier this month it had racked up too much debt, the bakery closed over the weekend, owners said on Instagram Sunday.

"This is not what we wanted. Not what we expected. It's where a bad path has led," the social media post read. "The city dies a death with us. A loss in so many layers."

Owners previously had revealed the company's financial woes they had been trying to solve for more than a year, with debt that had become like "quicksand." Another City Bakery-owned shop, Birdbath Green Bakery in SoHo, also closed earlier this year after its lease ended.

The bakery on West 18th Street near Union Square was first opened by Maury Rubin in 1989, who built more than a dozen bakeries over the years and oversaw City Bakery's expansion to Japan. He also launched the bakery's annual hot chocolate festival in Union Square.

In their announcement, the owners promised a return — just not as City Bakery. The "spirit, the creative, the pleasure, the surprise, the hands and heart that built City Bakery will be back," the Instagram post continued.