By Kara Patman
Staff Writer
After several years in Manhattan Beach, Pomodoro closes its doors.
Pomodoro has several locations in the South Bay. It is the second location after the Pomodoro in Irvine closed down. Pomodoro’s first restaurant was opened in San Francisco in 1994, and the restaurant chain continued to open locations in California.
“I am sad Pomodoro has closed in Manhattan Beach,” sophomore Molly Gerber said. “Their pasta was by far my favorite in the whole South Bay area.”
Although the restaurant closed, not many people were upset. After serving many different Costa students and local adults many people were not satisfied with the quality of the restaurant.
“Whenever my friends and I would go to Pomodoro the staff was always very rude,” sophomore Jenna Chiabai said. “Even going with my parents, the restaurant always had slow service, which was bothersome.”
Pomodoro will not be opening any more restaurants in the South Bay but more locations will continue to open in Northern California. At its height, Pomodoro had a total of 42 locations in California until they changed ownership in 2009. The number of locations then reduced to 22.
“I think it was a bad idea that we left the Manhattan Beach location,” Pomodoro Incorporated income manager Britt Brunke said. “Had we put some money and time into that location we could’ve brought it back up to the good business we had when it first opened.”
After the company changed ownership in 2009 and numerous restaurants, Pomodoro made a company decision to pull the restaurants out of Southern California. The owners were not very successful and again sold the company this year in July of 2012 to Blackstreet Capital Management. The restaurants in the South Bay closed.
“When we changed ownerships in 2009 the menu changed and the food did too,” Brunke said. “It became a little pricier, and I think we just need to go back to the menu we had when it first opened.”
There will be no more Pomodoro restaurants built in the South Bay, but this chain hopes to start rebuilding it back up to the strong restaurant it used to be. The new locations will be in the San Francisco Bay Area because it is near Pomodoro’s main office.
“Manhattan Beach was a great spot and a prime location,” Brunke said. “We had a really good management team in Manhattan Beach which helped increase the amount of customer we had. We could have done a lot more with that location, we just didn’t ever get that far.”
In 2009, the company did not improve and the amount of business decreased as well as the number of customers. Brunke has big hopes and feels Pomodoro could better increase the business in the future.
“I hope we become successful again,” Brunke said. “I want to go back to the good basics of Pomodoro and build the company again. I hope we can re-establish ourselves and become the go to place for good-quality, affordable Italian food.”
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