Around New York, the stores have good potential for future uses, retail guru Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail practice at Douglas Elliman, tells GlobeSt.com.

“The stores tend to be small but well located, so it's certainly another opportunity for a food purveyor such as a yogurt place or Dunkin Donuts—assuming those vendors aren't already on a particular street—and they're big enough for a Teavana café.”

Other possibilities Consolo mentions include Prêt A Manger or an expanding chain called Just Falafel. “Trends change and evolve and stores open and close,” she says.

Crumbs went public three years ago at the height of the gourmet-cupcake boom, notes the Wall Street Journal. Since then its financial performance has suffered as a result of several years of losses, a dwindling cash supply, and the dying down of a food trend that was started by the company.

The baker posted a loss of $18.2 million last year, layered on a loss of $10.3 million in 2012, according to securities filings. Its cash on hand fell to $893,000 at the end of 2013, down from $6.3 million the prior year.

In March, Crumbs said it closed nine underperforming stores during the last three months of 2013, shut six at the start of 2014 and had more closures on the way.

“Regrettably, Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its devoted employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options," the company says in a statement to the Journal.

Those options could include a bankruptcy filing, the spokeswoman adds.