The abrupt closure of the North Shore bakery D’Amici's last week left former employees and customers surprised, and former and current owners squabbling over who is at fault for the failure of the 26-year-old pastry business.

Bakery owners Sandrine and Didier Coyer revealed the closure of the shops last week in Lynn, Melrose and Reading with a Facebook post and handwritten signs on the shops saying, “Sorry. We are closed. Out of business.”

The Coyers could not be reached for comment. But in a Facebook post on the bakery’s official page, the couple wrote that they were sorry for closing down the business they purchased in 2017.

“We are heartbroken today, disappointing[sic], guilty but also this is a time to focus on our family and try to move on in the best way we can,’’ the message said. The Facebook post has since been deleted.

The announcement brought near-immediate response from former owner Sarah Shea Torretta, who responded on her public Facebook page that she was disappointed by the news.

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A handwritten “Out of business” sign notifies customers of the recent closure of D’Amici’s Bakery in Melrose, Mass.. All three shops and a production facility shuttered last Monday.
Kaya Williams for WGBH News

“The thriving business that we built over 24 years collapsed under the new owners. Our mission was always to work to keep our employees gainfully employed. If we could turn back time and take a different direction we would,’’ she wrote. “Completely out of our control.”

Torretta also could not be reached for comment. But public court records show that the new bakery owners was financially struggling for months before the closure. The Coyers filed for bankruptcy in May; amended filings indicate that they owed more than $100,000 to multiple creditors, including Bank of America and World Global Capital. They reported their personal financial assets were a fraction of their debts, totaling just over $16,000, court records show.

The Coyers initially requested a five-year repayment plan to pay down they debts under Chapter 13 bankruptcy. But last month, they asked the court to convert the bankruptcy filing to a Chapter 7 case, allowing them to liquidate assets to discharge debts, according to court records. The couple’s attorney, Anna Shapiro, did not respond to requests for comment.

At the bakery’s Melrose location on Saturday, passerby peered into the windows of the darkened Main Street shop. Inside, small pastries had been removed from the cases, but fixtures remained intact; a cake remained on display, birthday candles still hanging from a nearby rack.

Some bakery patrons lamented the closure, like Lynda Umbrow, 66, of Melrose. She said she had been visiting the town’s Main Street D’Amici’s location “since it opened.”

“We’re very saddened by the whole thing,” Umbrow said. “Poor employees, my gosh.”

Nearly 50 employees were left jobless after the closure. A handful of North Shore businesses, including Periwinkles Food Shoppe in Salem and Nothing Bundt Cakes in Peabody, have offered to interview those displaced. They could not be reached for comment.

Other bakery patrons already felt something was amiss before the closure, including 36-year-old Wakefield resident Kevin O’Neil. When he stopped by the Reading location for a latte last Saturday, he found it unusual that the shop was out of espresso beans — though “everything else seemed intact,” he said in a phone interview.

“‘You guys are screwed,’ is what I was thinking,” O’Neil said. “How are you guys going to stay open as a coffee shop without espresso?”

“I guess I answered my own question,” he said.

Nadia Torretta Usalis, whose parents opened D’Amici’s in 1993, also posted online about her disappointment about the news. Facebook posts from the Torretta family prompted hundreds of comments from customers and other supporters lamenting the loss.

“To the D’Amici’s employees that have lost their jobs today, know my parents hoped and prayed the legacy would continue and all of you would remain gainfully employed,’’ she wrote. “Many of you stood by us since day 1 and we can’t help but think of you.”

Kaya Williams is a journalism student at Boston University.