On my way downtown this afternoon (to pump some iron, of course) I noticed a printed sign on the door of Di Lusso Bakery Cafe explaining that yesterday was the popular coffee shop and bakery’s last day in operation.

The sign cites “unforeseen circumstances” as the reason for the abrupt closure and offers some heartfelt thanks for the years of patronage their customers had provided them.

A man walked past me as I was reading it, stopped, and said, “Sad, isn’t it?”

Yes, it is sad. This was one of my favorite spots to conduct interviews with local musicians, politicians and anyone else I needed to talk to for the paper.

This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.

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7 Comments

  1. Reply

  2. It becomes tragic when you trace the original Royal Blend Coffee through to their merger with the once cute and small DiLusso Bakery on 1st street, their tragic expansion and decline to this last foothold downtown. Lives were destroyed.

    Reply
  3. Reply

  4. There has been over 23,000,000 million dollars in business failures for food service, and related business’s the last 3 years in deshutes county alone. Why don’t you guys write about reality in the community, about demographics, about what is really going on?

    There is not enough people,jobs,money to support everything in the area. There never will be, its about 5 years to late to figure that out.

    Break it down with math, its pretty scary in truth. I don’t get how half the businesses survive here, kinda a illusion. But that’s how bend is now, that is what’s kinda sad.

    Reply

  5. Truly sad, we’ve been conducting business meetings and interviewing possible hires there for years. Curious what happened…

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  6. It is sad to see it close ! I wonder what really happened and why. Such a delightful little place. We have lost many great businesses and Bend can’t afford to lose any of them.. Linda

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