Amy’s Drive Thru, the vegetarian fast-food spot that opened in Corte Madera just five years ago, has shut down.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to close our Corte Madera location effective today,” the company announced Monday. “Closing a restaurant is never easy, especially when we have felt so deeply supported by the community.”
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Paul Schiefer, president of Amy’s Kitchen, which is based in Sonoma County, declined to comment.
Amy’s Kitchen was founded in 1987 by Rachel and Andy Berliner and named for their daughter. It opened the Corte Madera drive-thru, its second, in August 2020 on Paradise Drive along Highway 101.
Amy’s tore down a former Denny’s and built a new restaurant with a plant-covered green roof, solar panels and electric car charging stations. It was the first drive-thru restaurant to operate in Corte Madera.
“Amy’s has been a great partner to us at the town,” said Amy Lyle, the town’s community development director. “They were such a great asset in the city and we’re so sorry to see them go, but they have also been doing a lot of work to make sure the next restaurant coming in is a match for our community character.”
Super Duper, a San Francisco-based burger chain with a dozen locations across the Bay Area, has filed an application to take over the site, according to Lyle.
“They’re not proposing to make major changes,” she said. “They’re really just rebranding and they’ll be keeping the living roof. … That will be a great fit for us versus some of the bigger chains that could have potentially come in.”
Amy’s Kitchen, which produces more than 260 products, opened its first drive-thru in Rohnert Park. That was followed by Corte Madera and several other California locations.
The expansion to drive-thrus has been challenging. In February 2024, Amy’s announced the closure of drive-thrus in Roseville and Thousand Oaks. Amy’s still has a restaurant at San Francisco International Airport.
The drive-thru closings come amid other headwinds. In October 2024, the company laid off 15% of its staff at its Petaluma and Santa Rosa facilities, according to the North Bay Business Journal. The company has about 2,600 employees across the U.S.
Before the pandemic, the company had annual sales of about $600 million in 56,000 grocery stores. More recently, annual revenues had fallen by 25%, according to Dun and Bradstreet, which tracks business data. Schiefer told the Business Journal that since the pandemic, people were preparing more pasta, rice and beans at home.
