Twiggs Coffee House & Bakery Abruptly Ending 30 Year Run In San Diego

October 9, 2023

After more than 30 years in business, San Diego's beloved Twiggs Coffee will abruptly shutter its two area locations this week. 

"Lindy and Angela have worked at Twiggs for years and been amazing to our community," reads the GoFundMe page made to raise funds and awareness. "Their energy and light has touched us all. They were abruptly fired this morning and told Twiggs would close in 2 days. That’s all the notice they received. This isn’t okay. Please help raise some money so they’ll have something while they search for new employment."

Twiggs Coffee was opened on Park Boulevard in San Diego's University Heights in 1992 by composer and arranger Michael Roth and his wife, artist Jill Moon. After 5 years of running the business, Michael and Jill wanted to pursue other interests, so they sold the coffeehouse in 1997 to Dan Stringfield and Bernie Horan. The cafe eventually opened a commercial bakery about a half a block away, which they soon outgrew. In 2008, ownership launched a new cafe and bakery space on Adams Avenue in University Heights sited at the western end of "Antique Row." In March 2022, Adrian Arancibia and his wife Delia completed a nearly 10-month-long process of becoming the new owners of the two locations of Twiggs.

"We would love to continue investing in this community institution, but buying TWIGGS was in fact a labor of love," explained Twiggs current owner Adrian Arancibia, who wrote an Op-Ed on San Diego's economic situation for the Union Tribune back in July. "My children grew up eating our pastries and our drinking steamers. I wrote my dissertation there. Unfortunately, the economy, especially in San Diego, has not been kind to small business. From inflation to interest rate increases, it has not been a supportive environment for small business. We have been hit especially hard by the industry slump in wedding cake sales drop off. If there were any other way to keep this community cafe open, we would. We wanted to be assured that every employee would be paid hence the reason for the short notice. We lament it, but wanted to make sure that every worker was paid for their labor."

It has been reported that employees of both Twiggs locations were given notice over this past weekend that Tuesday, October 10, would be the last day of business for the cafes. Adrian and Delia Arancibia currently have a liquor license application for a Type 41 beer & wine license for the Adams Avenue property. The two businesses are currently for sale for $559,000.

"To your second question, we applied for a simple beer and wine license for mimosas and beer and wine," continued Arancibia. "We applied July which should not be that difficult nor expensive, but it labored in city development for over a month (for zoning clearance). And we have been waiting for approval from ABC now 4 months and though everything had been turned in, have had no word. We continue to look at options to maintain this community institution alive."

Twiggs Coffee has locations at 4590 Park Boulevard and 2804 Adams Avenue in San Diego's University Heights. For more information, visit twiggs.org.