Hawaii’s Love’s Bakery to Close After 170 Years

Love’s Bakery will close at the end of March, after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the operation to its knees, SFGate reports. The bakery exists since 1851, and first fired up its ovens more than a century before Hawaii became the 50th state. The Honolulu mainstay employs 231 people — who will all lose their jobs — and normally distributes about 400,000 loaves to 1,800 customers every week.

Demand for bread is way down during the pandemic, with hotels and restaurants closed. Increased local competition had reportedly also taken a big cut out of Love’s dough.

“We have worked diligently to cut expenses, to maintain our market share and to remedy our operational difficulties, however under the current business environment we are no longer able to continue operations,” the company said in a statement.