Another one bites the dust in Burnaby.
Lattea (樂飲), the bubble tea shop located at Crystal Mall in Burnaby, appears to have quietly shut down for good.
We first noticed the shop was closed back on January 22 and have since visited the mall multiple times over the past two months.
Each time, the doors remained locked and the lights were off.
Peeking through the glass, you can see the interior has been partially cleared out, with some renovation work visible inside.
Storage bins sit on the counter where drinks used to be made, and curtains have been drawn over the prep area.
No new brand signage has gone up yet.
On Google, the listing for the Kingsway location is currently set to “temporarily closed.”
But there are stronger signs that this closure is permanent.
The brand’s Instagram page has removed the Kingsway address from its profile entirely.
When a business quietly scrubs a location from its socials, that usually tells you everything you need to know.
Lattea originally took over several former Yifang Fruit Tea locations after that Taiwanese chain pulled out of British Columbia.
The Kingsway spot at Crystal Mall was one of them.
Yifang was once one of the fastest growing bubble tea chains in the region, known for its fruit tea lineup.
But the brand struggled to maintain its foothold in BC and eventually closed all of its locations here.
Lattea stepped in to fill the gap, taking over some of those empty storefronts and bringing its own lineup of milk teas and fruit drinks to the area.
For a while, the Crystal Mall location seemed to be holding its own, sitting along the busy Kingsway corridor next to other food vendors.
But the quiet closure in January suggests that things did not work out at this particular spot.
It is unclear whether the closure is related to the lease, business performance, or other factors.
The brand does still operate other locations in Richmond and Downtown Vancouver.
For the Crystal Mall stretch of Kingsway though, this is just the latest in a string of food closures that have hit Burnaby in recent months.
Lattea now joins a growing list of recently closed food spots in Burnaby like Saboten Brentwood, Green Basil Thai, and American Cheesesteak Co. at Metrotown.
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Address: 4500 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC (Crystal Mall)