Not All Upper Crust Locations Are Closed And Corporate

Popular opinion of The Upper Crust is surely at an all time low due to recent events, but patrons may find it useful to distinguish between varying levels of corporate involvement at different locations of the local pizza chain, and so here's a quick primer. Eater reached out to Jenn Abelson, who has been covering the company for the Boston Globe, and who assisted with the following information via email. There are three kinds of locations of The Upper Crust: corporate, LLC, and franchise. All ten of the local, corporate locations are currently closed due to bankruptcy: they may remain closed unless funding comes to the rescue. A location in Washington D.C. also appears to be closed: no one answered a phone call during regular business hours and the voicemail greeting hasn't been changed since April.

Locations in Coolidge Corner and Beacon Hill remain open and are controlled separately as part of an LLC run by founder Jordan Tobins. The following locations are franchise operations that also remain open: 1727 Centre Street in West Roxbury and those in Plymouth, Newburyport, and Portsmouth, NH. Just how different is a corporate location from a franchise? Consider this quote from Abelson's most recent article by one of the franchise operators affected by the company's abuse of Groupon.

The past few years have been extremely challenging for us. When we first opened the pizzeria, we were excited to join a local brand that was strong and growing... Upper Crust was presented to us as a successful and viable business. We had no idea that these problems existed — like you, we've learned about them by reading the newspaper.

For a full list of those closed corporate locations, see below.

· Fenway: 1330 Boylston Street
· State Street: 107 State Street
· Harvard Square: 49 B Brattle Street
· Hingham: 73 South Street
· Lexington: 41 Waltham Street
· Back Bay: 222 Newbury Street
· South End: 683 Tremont Street
· Watertown: 94 Main Street
· Wellesley: 99 Central Street

· Franchisees riled over Upper Crust's discount vouchers [BG]
· All coverage of The Upper Crust on Eater [~EBOS~]
[Photo: Cal Bingham]