Tully's Files for Bankruptcy Protection, Plans to Close Bella Bottega Store

Tully's Coffee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday and announced plans to close its Bella Bottega store in Redmond along with eight other Seattle-area locations.

The Bella Bottega Tully's will close Sunday, as well as the Bridle Trails store in Kirkland and the Hollywood Vineyard location in Woodinville, a company spokeswoman confirmed to Patch via email.

The announcement came just a few days after the company shut the doors to its Redmond Town Center shop—the only other Tully's location in Redmond. As The Seattle Times reported, the Seattle-based chain is strapped for cash and has been working to renegotiate its leases at several locations.

In addition to closing several stores, CEO Scott Pearson told the newspaper Tully's is working to reduce costs by eliminating positions through attrition and renegotiating contracts with suppliers.

“We’re at a point where we need to position Tully’s for the future,” Pearson told The Times. “We need to be able to keep this company operating, and this is the best option for us.”

At Bella Bottega, Tully's appeared to be ready to expand its drink menu after applying for a liquor license earlier this year. Company spokeswoman Diane Geurts told Patch as recently as last week that those plans were still in the works.

Geurts also said last week that each Tully's store employs about 10 people and that the company was "making every effort to relocate staff" from the Redmond Town Center location to other stores. Those sentiments were re-issued Wednesday regarding the new round of closures, with the company saying it expects to be able to place the majority of employees in other Tully's locations.

 "Our priority is retaining our team," Geurts said via email.