As Elissa Coambs pulled on the doors of Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe, she found the doors locked, lights shut off and a note taped to the door informing customers of its sudden closing.

“I’m surprised,” said Coambs, senior in LAS. “I’m from in town and I have come in all of my life. My friend and I have a weekly Wednesday Moonstruck Madness.”

On Tuesday, the Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe, located at 709 S. Wright St., was shut down by Moonstruck Chocolate Company.

Along with the closing of the Champaign store, nine other chocolate cafes were closed Tuesday. These cafes specialized in selling chocolate and espresso drinks.

“We are a Portland-based company and want to focus our retail efforts with those five (Portland) cafes,” said Darin Linnman, public relations manager of Moonstruck Chocolate Company. “We have been looking at all of those channels’ performances (located outside of the Pacific Northwest area) and the difficult realization is that these cafes needed to be closed to ensure the long term success of the company.”

Darin said factors beyond the Champaign store manager’s control contributed to the decision to close the cafe.

Because the company is based in Portland, Ore., cafes outside the Pacific Northwest may not have “as high of brand awareness,” contributing to lower sales.

Although the announcement of the stores’ closing was made Tuesday to owners and employees, Darin said each manager was aware of their business and how it compared with the retail sale expectations of the company.

However, some University students said the store’s closing was unexpected.

“I talked to the manager last Friday about a fundraiser and she said to call next week and she would give us a gift basket,” said Megan Bailey, freshman in Education. “My friend told me it closed yesterday and I wanted to come see what happened.”

With the closing of the stores, the company said it was providing managers and employees with separation packages based on their length of their time of employment.

“We didn’t want to just have them walk away empty handed,” Linnman said. “It will give them time to go out and look for what they need.”

Linnman also said after the closing of the cafes, the company plans “to concentrate on some of the areas that we had been neglecting,” such as its ‘business to business’ sales and production of specialty products that have shorter shelf lives.

Even with the companies proposed plans to improve its business, some students are not happy with the decision to close the Champaign cafe.

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Coambs said. “Maybe I’ll go to another coffee shop, but it won’t match up to Moonstruck.”