Chocolatier Godiva concludes all of his North American stories, including seven locations in the Bay Area.
The mass closure will affect 128 stores in the US and Canada, although the outposts in Europe, the Middle East and China will remain open. The closures will be completed by March, as the stores are expected to remain open during the lucrative Valentine’s Day season.
The news comes less than two years after Godiva’s planned expansion of 2,000 cafes around the world by 2025. However, Americans will not be short of Godiva chocolate. The products will henceforth be sold online in grocery stores and other retailers carrying their products.
In a statement, Godiva said shopping had personally “declined as a result of the pandemic”, which is accelerating the “acceleration of changes in consumers’ shopping behavior”. Many of the retail outlets were in malls.
The Bay Area locations include:
Livermore: San Francisco Premium Outlets
Palo Alto: Stanford Mall
Pleasanton: Stoneridge Mall
San Francisco: Stonestown Galleria
San Francisco: Downtown San Francisco
Santa Clara: Westfield Valley Fair Mall
Walnut Creek: Broadway Plaza
The company, which was founded in Belgium in the 1920s, was acquired in 2007 by the Turkish company Yıldız Holding. Godiva is headquartered in New York City, with its two factories in Brussels and Reading, Penn.