Bub & Grandma’s Bakery Scraps Coronavirus Reopening: ‘LA Is Not Safe Right Now’

Popular Los Angeles wholesale bakery Bub & Grandma’s has scrapped its reopening plans following a run of positive COVID-19 tests among staff last month. The Silver Lake bakery supplies breads to some of the city’s most prominent restaurants, from Kismet to Kato to Osteria Mozza, but on social media owner Andy Kadin says that without more information on soaring coronavirus cases and federal/local intervention, keeping employees home is the safest option available.

Bub & Grandma’s first closed nearly a month ago after one of its employees tested positive for the coronavirus. At the time, Kadin said on social media that he would oversee testing for all employees, and a thorough cleaning of the entire facility, even offering refunds to customers who were worried about the safety of their own baked goods bought through one of the company’s farmers market stops or other pickups. Five more employees ultimately tested positive for COVID-19.

Kadin had been working to reopen for his wholesale restaurant customers as soon as this week, but now that’s entirely on pause indefinitely. The statement reads, in part:

There is no firm ground to build plans atop right now and there simply won’t be for a long time. But the one thing I do know and can lean on for making decisions is that Los Angeles is not safe right now... It’d take some very clever cognitive maneuvering to feel comfortable bringing my people back to the bakery.

Right now — for a short financially stable while — all we have to lose are customers and that’s a lucky way to be. I know, that sounds insane — all we have to lose is our entire business — but in the end it’s a simple, if painful, decision: I’d rather lose the business to other bakeries while we’re down than lose a human I’m responsible for to this illness.

Kadin says that he is “going to stay closed for the time being and take a peek at what things look like at the end of the month,” but without a further federal stimulus package for small businesses and employees, and without a decrease in daily COVID-19 numbers, the future is far from certain.

Reached by email, Kadin confirmed that he paid his employees out of pocket through the end of last month, and that now employees are on unemployment benefits. He’s hoping that more clarity could come from Congress this week on what to expect, financially, moving forward. The full text of the post is below.

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