BREWER – The soft economy is to blame for yet another business closing, one that lies close to the hearts – and stomachs – of local residents. The Brown Bag, a local eatery whose locations have graced the area since 1994, closed without notice Sunday.

“They called me Sunday morning and told me to come get my stuff,” Stephen Lamson said. Lamson had been head chef at one of the Brown Bag’s locations for the past eight years.

Brown Bag owners Diane and Hector Cyr made the decision to close the business last weekend. The 30 employees were informed of the decision Sunday.

“We did make sure that all the employees were paid their last paycheck,” Hector Cyr said Wednesday. “We had to do that for them at least.”

He hopes that those who lost their jobs will be able to collect unemployment or find new jobs.

The Cyrs own four Brown Bag locations. The main store is in Brewer, and the others are located at Snow’s Corner Mobil Station in Orrington, the corner of Union Street and Griffin Road in Bangor, and the Eastern Maine Healthcare Mall.

None of these locations is affiliated with the Rockland Brown Bag, which is owned by sisters Debra Orosz and Claire Holmes.

“There’s no financial problems here,” Orosz said Wednesday. She wanted to assure customers that the Rockland location would remain open.

Orosz, Holmes and their two sisters opened the original Brown Bag restaurant and bakery in Rockland in 1987. Other locations in the Bangor region were added later. When the sisters split up the partnership in 1997, the Rockland location was no longer affiliated with the others.

Hector Cyr said he regrets having to close the business he has owned since January 2001, but that it is closed for good.

“We enjoyed it while it lasted,” Cyr said. “We just wish we could have kept it going, but it was out of our control.”