9 months after bankruptcy, Specialty’s Cafe makes comeback.
Original owners reopen restaurant in Mountain View, hint at expansion
Those Specialty’s Cafe & Bakery sandwiches, salads, soups and cookies you loved so much?
They’re back — along with fresh new spins on longtime favorites.
Nine months after the Specialty’s Cafe & Bakery chain filed for bankruptcy, the brand has been resurrected.
“Specialty’s original founders, Craig and Dawn (Saxton), missed the business so they’ve returned and they’ve brought their (now grown!) kids with them,” a posting on their Facebook page said.
The Saxtons, who launched the cafe in 1987 in San Francisco with Dawn’s recipes, have started again with one location, on Ellis Street in Mountain View, one of the former sites.
More than 50 cafes in California, Washington and Illinois were forced to shutter last year when then-owner FEMSA, a retail and beverage giant, announced that COVID-19 work-fromhome rules had dealt a blow to the Pleasantonbased company’s business model. For years, Specialty’s specialty had been serving the weekday lunch crowd and delivering boxed lunches for office meetings.
The Saxtons, who had sold the company in 2017, bought it back out of Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“We get to do a do-over,” Craig Saxton said this week at the restaurant just off Highway 101 after a day spent overseeing the operation and welcoming back longtime customers.
Because they didn’t get any leases, however, they will have to renegotiate any new locations. They’re starting with the one cafe “to help us get back into serving changed customer needs” and may open other locations based on customer demand.
Immediate plans include re-energizing the online ordering model, reintroducing catering and offering delivery to a large geographic area.
The Saxtons have created some new sandwiches, salads and pastries for the inaugural menu and brought back some old favorites. (“Same cookies,” they write. “We’re not crazy!”)
Nine sandwiches are offered: Roasted Turkey with Cranberry Chutney, Classic Turkey, Porchetta (with roasted onions and green pep
pers), BBQ Pulled Chicken (with spicy coleslaw), Pulled Chicken (with balsamic onion jam and goat cheese), Classic Tuna Salad, Chickpea Vegetarian, the Classic Ham and
a Shaved Ham version (with fennel-apple-onion chutney, sharp cheddar and aioli).
Soup lovers will find that the popular Italian 3 Bean Vegetable on the menu, and it’s joined by a new one, Clam Chowder with Lobster Ravioli.
Again there’s a Chicken Cobb Salad, along with
three trendy additions: Moroccan Kale Salad, Mexican Chop Salad and Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese.
The array of baked goods is a long list, ranging from cappuccino mocha scones to danish filled with fresh blueberries.
One longtime customer spoke on behalf of so many others when she enthused
on social media about the comeback:
“This is seriously the best thing since sliced bread!”
Details: Open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 645 Ellis St., Mountain View; www.specialtys.com a union: benefits, career growth and pay that starts at $15 an hour. Others dispute that. Levin, the Michigan congressman who was once a union organizer, called it “the most important election for the working-class people of this country in my lifetime.”