FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — It was a packed house Saturday morning, as Fresno residents geared up to say goodbye to a breakfast staple.
“We’ve been coming here for a very long time, and it’s very special to us, so we wanted to come and have our last meal here,” said longtime customer Madelyn De La Cruz.
De La Cruz tells Action News that she and her friends have been eating at Bennaddiction since 2013, when owner James Caples operated a food truck in Downtown Fresno.
What started as a passion project blossomed into a beloved breakfast spot, even being featured on our Dine and Dish series in 2022.
“I’ve built a really strong community of regulars and followers who love what we do here, and I’m sad that we’re not gonna see them anymore,” Caples said.
He told us he loves his food, known for his eggs Benedict and pancakes, but it’s always been about the people.
For De La Cruz, that culture is what has kept her coming back.
“We have breakfast places, we have lots of chains, things like that, but this was just something that felt very homegrown Fresno,” De La Cruz said.
But Bennaddiction has fallen on hard times.
Caples says the sudden closure of their original location in 2023, tacked onto rising prices and a crippling government shutdown last year, left him struggling to make ends meet.
“I stopped paying myself, starting working mostly for tips for my money, and we were managing to get by, to squeak by that way,” Caples said.
Our ABC30 Price Tracker shows bacon prices in Fresno at $5.63 per pound in 2016; ten years later, it has jumped to $7.29.
Eggs are also seeing a spike, going from $2.33 to $3.49.
Caples told Action News that by October 2025, sales had dropped 25% from the previous year, leaving them nearly $800,000 in the hole.
“It just got to a point where I’m just too tired to keep doing it, so we’re gonna find a nice, peaceful job for a while,” Caples said.
But he isn’t saying goodbye without offering his loyal customers a chance at taking a piece of Benaddiction home…
“Starting next weekend, we’re gonna start selling our mugs on a bid offer,” Caples told us.
“It’s hard, it’s 13 years of your life, it’s hard.”
Your last chance to grab breakfast at Benaddiction will be Monday, January 19.
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