Drinks at Boba Guys, pictured in 2018. The Bay Area bubble tea chain shut down its original location.
Boba Guys’ original store in San Francisco’s Mission District has permanently shut down after worker protests at this location sparked online backlash against the popular bubble tea company.
Co-founders Andrew Chau and Bin Chen confirmed the closure. They notified employees in an email last month, which also announced the Newport Beach Boba Guys would shut down.
“Know that neither of these decisions was made without many hours of deliberation and review of the impact this has on our team and community,” they wrote, but did not provide a reason. They said they offered all affected employees transfers to nearby Boba Guys shops.
Chau and Bin temporarily closed the Mission store in October after a group of employees refused to work, alleging that the company had retaliated against them for discussing union rights. The co-founders said at the time that they “respect the rights of employees to organize or engage in collective bargaining.”
The employees hung critical signs in the windows of the 19th Street boba shop, with messages like “upper management retaliates against boba employees” and “Boba Guys employees can’t make rent.” They were also upset that Boba Guys had given them little advance notice that the store was struggling and their hours would be reduced as a result. Their criticisms spread quickly on social media, leading to one-star Yelp reviews.
It’s a significant closure for the Bay Area chain: Chau and Bin launched their business here in 2011. Boba Guys eventually grew from a single shop to one of the best known American boba companies, with more than 20 locations in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York City.
Elena Kadvany (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany
Elena Kadvany joined The San Francisco Chronicle as a food reporter in 2021. Previously, she was a staff writer at the Palo Alto Weekly and its sister publications, where she covered restaurants and education and also founded the Peninsula Foodist restaurant column and newsletter.