Five Central Valley locations that once operated as West Coast Sourdough have rebranded as Cali Ray’s Sourdough Deli amid a lawsuit and franchisee fallout. Photo illustration by Israel Meave
There’s a new name on a familiar local sandwich shop. Five West Coast Sourdough locations across the Central Valley have rebranded as Cali Ray’s Sourdough Deli, while seven others in the region are continuing to operate under the original name.
The locations that have made the switch, according to the Cali Ray’s mobile ordering platform on Toast : 6770 N. Brawley Ave. in Fresno, 1057 N. Willow Ave. in Clovis, 2180 W. Cleveland Ave. in Madera, 827 S. Akers St. in Visalia and 1174 W. Henderson Ave. in Porterville. Remaining West Coast Sourdough locations include two in Fresno (Shaw Avenue and River Park), one in Clovis (Herndon Avenue), and stores in Kerman, Dinuba and Tulare.
Why the switch?
An operator who moved to Cali Ray’s said the decision came down to a West Coast Sourdough corporate team that offered price increases as the only solution to operational challenges, with little guidance. The transition was informal — no franchise meeting, just operators who shared frustrations coordinating among themselves.
The manager and owner of the Oceanside Cali Ray’s location, who asked to be identified by role only, said the legal exposure from an ongoing lawsuit stays with West Coast Sourdough’s corporate leadership, not with operators who have switched. “The lawsuits aren’t affecting most of us franchisees that moved over,” the manager/owner said. “It’s just affecting the West Coast corporate board.”
New name, lower prices
One of the first changes under the Cali Ray’s name was a price reduction across most menu categories. Flatbreads and house sandwiches came down. A new category, Rays Faves, carries a roughly 70-cent premium but includes additional protein and fresh mozzarella. “Changing over to Cali Ray’s, our prices went down on a lot of things,” the manager/owner said.
Ousted founder
The rebrand follows a lawsuit filed by Karndeep Uppal, who founded West Coast Sourdough in 2020 and says he was pushed out by former business partners in 2024 — locked out of the company’s point-of-sale system, bank accounts and corporate email without warning.
“Several people said they thought I just disappeared,” Uppal said in an interview with The Business Journal. He said he built the chain on a “franchise-first” ethos drawn from his own experience being mistreated as a franchisee — an irony not lost on him given how things unfolded. West Coast Sourdough’s current corporate leadership did not respond to a request for comment.