Candy shop closing in S.F.'s Mid-Market after more than a decade
Littlejohn’s Candies is closing its San Francisco store after 11 years, becoming the latest business to leave the troubled Mid-Market area.
Located at 1422 Market St., the English Toffee specialist’s last day of operations will be Thursday.
“For the past 11 plus years we have had the distinct pleasure of being here on Historic Market Street to make, serve and sell the best candy we can to our community. But the time has come to make a change, one that can allow us to continue to our traditional business practices of handcrafting each batch of delicious treats,” the company said in an email to customers.
“We will be taking a minute to breathe, before beginning to look for a new retail location in the Bay Area,” said owners Christopher and Mejia Graves. They couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The Mid-Market and Civic Center neighborhoods have seen an exodus of businesses in the age of remote work. Across the street, Uber, Reddit, Block and WeWork have left or plan to move out of 1455 Market St. City workers are in the office only part of the week. Nearby, Elon Musk’s Twitter has laid off the majority of employees after the billionaire purchased the company last year.
The owners said they had been seeking a new kitchen outside in a place “not as volatile as the Bay Area,” and have been manufacturing candy for the past five months in Somerset (El Dorado County) in the Sierra Foothills.
Littlejohn’s was founded in 1924 in Los Angeles, where it continues to operate at a farmer’s market.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
