Sweet Lady Jane Is Reopening All Locations Under New Ownership | Eater LA

"After shuttering all six locations on December 31, 2023, the 35-year-old bakery was independently acquired on February 16, 2024, by Julie Ngu, who purchased the business’s intellectual property, recipes, branding, website, social media handles, and equipment and plans to reopen all outlets — including in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Encino, West Hollywood, and San Fernando — in the coming months. The bakery is best known for its signature Triple Berry cake, a three-layer yellow butter cake filled with lightly sweetened whipped cream and three kinds of fresh berries, and Ngu has said she wants as many people as possible to have access to it. Sweet Lady Jane had struggled financially since early 2020 (with at least ten different leadership changes after founder Jane Lockhart stepped away in 2020), and its owners cited insufficient sales to meet lease obligations and pay employees a living wage when announcing the closures; the former owners also face a class-action wage-theft lawsuit that the new owner will not assume responsibility for. In recent weeks Ngu has been hiring (posting a notice on the Encino window), has rehired a handful of former workers despite having no prior access to staff, is actively promoting the comeback on social media with #JaneIsBack, and intends to reopen stores gradually while renegotiating leases, setting up new utilities, and securing permits, following conversations with Lockhart that Ngu described as a “passing of the baton.”" - Mona Holmes