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Café Kubal has permanently closed its Marshall Square Mall and Marriott Syracuse Downtown locations due to financial difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The coffee shop’s Marshall Square Mall location, a long-time staple for Syracuse University students, has been closed since March and will be cleared out this week, said Michael Heagerty, Kubal’s digital marketing manager. The chain plans to open a cafe at the company’s headquarters on North Townsend Street “soon,” Heagerty said. He did not give an exact date.

The chain’s Eastwood, Salina Street, Creekwalk Commons and Golisano Children’s Hospital locations will remain open.

Café Kubal hopes to utilize its mobile cafe in the university area, Heagerty said. The mobile cafe, operating out of a used coffee roasters truck, travels to different neighborhoods and events in and around Syracuse. Kubal plans to hold pop-up events on or near campus, potentially working with SU departments to bring the mobile cafe in the mornings. 

Heagerty cited uncertainty about whether students will return to campus in the fall as a factor behind the closure.

“It makes much more sense for us to utilize the mobile cafe. With the overhead, the rent, the up in the air with students coming back or not coming back, the second half of the semester being online-only,” Heagerty said. “There were many factors that went into this decision.”

Closing the Marshall Square Mall location will reduce the chain’s dependency on the SU student body, owner Matt Goddard wrote in an internal email to Café Kubal staff. Most SU students left campus when the university suspended in-person instruction in March due to COVID-19.

“It has been a great decade of operation in the SU community,” Goddard wrote. “However, circumstances beyond my control have caused me to have to rethink business in many ways. This is one of them.”

Café Kubal opened its Marshall Square Mall location in 2012, and the Marriott Syracuse Downtown cafe began operations in 2018. Employees from the Marriott location were offered positions at the Townsend Street cafe. Employees from Marshall Square Mall have the opportunity to work at one of the chain’s other locations or to work in the mobile cafe, Heagerty said.

“I value you as individuals,” Goddard wrote in the email. “My wish is that you would continue working for Kubal and continue to perfect your hospitality abilities and barista craft here.”

Published on July 20, 2020 at 1:26 pm

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu