All Are Welcome Calls It Quits – All Three Stores to Shut

Founded in 2017, Northcote’s All Are Welcome quickly grew into one of the city’s most-loved bakeries, with equally busy locations in Thornbury and Ivanhoe East. But things turned earlier this week, with news that owner Boris Portnoy allegedly owes current and former employees $243,000 in superannuation and $125,000 in leave entitlements. Portnoy declined to confirm these figures to Broadsheet.

In a lengthy Instagram post on Saturday June 14, the business announced its permanent closure. The decision was “made for us”, Portnoy told Broadsheet earlier today.

All Are Welcome entered administration in February, and Portnoy bought back the business in April, under a new entity. Portnoy says the landlord at the bakery’s Northcote location, which produced bread for the three sites, was not willing to transfer the lease to the new entity.

“We found out about it on Tuesday evening at 5.30 when they locked us out,” he says. By Wednesday June 11, he says, it became clear the landlord was not willing to enter into negotiations. He adds that the recent ABC report had no bearing on the decision to close, and doesn’t believe it influenced the landlords either: “I think those decisions [by the landlord] were made very early during the administration.”

The team ran through all of the scenarios to see what the business would look like without its Northcote HQ. “It was really clear that we were going to be taking on more risk,” he says. “It could work if everything goes right, but not everything has been going right. If I have learnt anything, it’s that I don’t need to be taking as much risk.”

Portnoy doesn’t know comes next, but says business’s assets are “probably going to be liquidated”. In a typical liquidation, funds are distributed to first cover the liquidators’s costs, then pay outstanding debts to suppliers and employees.

Portnoy says the final day of trade has been busy, a testament to how meaningful the bakery has been to its regulars. “It’s been eight years and you see everyone’s lives … I just want to be here with them.”

All Are Welcome will permanently close at 2pm today.