The last-week-of-the-year surprise restaurant shutterings are here, and this one, while not a huge surprise, is definitely surprisingly abrupt. Pasta Pomodoro, the once ubiquitous local Italian chain, ceased operations over the Christmas weekend and informed employees of the news on Monday via text. The closure includes all 15 of the chain's remaining Bay Area locations, and this follows on the incremental closings of 15 other locations — the Pasta P empire was, at one point in the last decade, 30 locations strong, with multiple locations in San Francisco and Southern California as well.

The last SF location of the chain, in Laurel Village, closed in February, much to the disappointment of neighborhood parents with small children.

KTVU broke the news via a screenshot of the text that was sent to employees, and of course it's them, the staffers, for whom this is the worst news of all. Said one to the station, "It is a really incredible sense of betrayal come the new year with no job, nowhere to go." Said another, "So I'm like Merry Christmas self, you're broke, that's the way I look at it. You have no money, you don't know when you're getting paid."

It's unclear how many employees are losing their jobs as a result of the closure, but the number is likely to be in the hundreds. As Inside Scoop reports, employees have been told they can pick up their final paychecks on Friday.

Pasta Pomodoro was founded in 1994 by Adriano Paganini, who would later sell off his interest in the chain in 2010. Shortly after the sale, the SoCal locations were shuttered, along with several in the local area — including the Castro location, which Paganini would quickly reuse as the first location of Super Duper. The burger chain now boasts 10 locations around the Bay Area, and Paganini has gone on in the last half decade to become possibly the biggest restaurateur in the region, with a dozen other restaurant concept under his belt and under the aegis of his Back of the House restaurant group.