Pick Up Stix Closes 26 Stores Without Notice
By LC on Jan 16, 2008 in Commercial Real Estate, Featured Articles, Strip Malls
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“We have made the difficult business decision to close 26 Pick Up Stix restaurants effective January 15, 2008. We took a hard look at our existing business in light of the current economic situation and at this time will focus on our core markets,” said Amy Freshwater, vice president of communication and public relations for Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, parent of Pick Up Stix restaurants, in response to The Strip Mall Insider’s inquiry as to the reason for the closures.
Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, a subsidiary the Carlson Companies, owns the Pick Up Stix and TGI Fridays brands. Carlson Worldwide owns and controls brands in the restaurant, travel and lodging verticals.
Pick Up Stix was founded in 1989 by Asian-American entrepreneur Charles Zhang. In July 2001, the company was acquired by Carlson Restaurants Worldwide.
On Jan 16, 2008, ccg2006 said:
This one is a hard call. It could be that the demand for this type of product wasn’t what consumers were craving, but I felt the concept was sound and the product satisfactory.
With so many choices of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese or Thai food, this fusion was quite interesting and it had corporate muscle to help with marketing and leverage funds that a lot of small business owners do not have the luxury of having. So having restaurants like Mongolian BBQ, Viet Hoa, Panda South or Bamboo Inn in our area that have managed to stay in business either makes them lucky or give them credit for having a good product. But with Pick Up Stix, it may be that there corporate office felt that cutting off a foot could save the rest of the leg-so to speak.
On Jan 19, 2008, alex said:
It’s strange. I live down the street from one of the locations that closed, and another one was maybe an hour away. Both locations always seemed busy. And they made excellent food. I’m really surprised to hear they closed down. According to the sign on my local store, they’re no longer in Northern California, and it says to visit them in Southern California or Nevada. Yeah, either 4 to 5 hours away.