It's Black Friday and the employees at the Hostess discount outlet in Glendale are glum.
"We're done," says one.
She's referring to a judge's decision late Wednesday that the liquidation and layoffs Hostess announced last week will go forward.
Black Friday is probably one of the last days she will ever work for Hostess.
And it's a busy one.
Signs are posted around the store, offering various configurations of baked goods for $1.
Four packages of Twinkies are only $1. A box of cupcakes or Donettes is also $1.
The markdown is a new, designed to empty the shelves quickly.
A customer asks if Black Friday will be the store's last business day.
No, says a worker. But maybe Saturday--if the merchandise moves quickly enough.
The customer says he'll be back tomorrow.
Workers at the outlet store are Teamsters, the union willing to trade paycuts for jobs. Teamsters blame the Bakers' union, which refused to compromise on wages, for the Hostess demise.
The workers at the Glendale store seem tired of putting on a happy face.
"We just want to get this over with," says one.
Meantime, the Hostess bakery in nearby Silver Lake--where Donettes once rolled off production lines--is eerily quiet.
Marooned trucks sit idly in the loading dock area. The building behind it is dark.
It's likely the Twinkie and Ho-Ho will live on, with packaged goods companies already courting those brands.
Whether a buyer can also absorb some of the Hostess workers remains to be seen.
The future of the Silver Lake plant and grounds too remains an open question.
Located just a block from the Los Angeles River in a changing neighborhood, it is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
