Starbucks closes stores and cuts work
Affected employees will be notified this week and will be provided with transfer opportunities or retirement packages. (Scripps News)
Scripps News
In a message to employees on September 25th, Starbucks announced that it will close around 1% of its stores in its latest move under CEO Brian Niccol’s Starbucks transformation strategy.
The company had not released a list of stores it plans to close, but the Seattle Times confirmed that its home town’s reserve roaster and reserve store are one of the stores that have been set to shutters.
Specialty Coffee Chains close “where customers and partners cannot create the physical environment they expect or have no path to financial performance.”
In an email to USA Today, the company said the Starbucks app will be updated to reflect the Sunday closure.
Starbucks Worker United, representing 12,000 baristas in 45 states and the District of Columbia, said in a statement issued after Nicole’s memo was released it would formally request information regarding the planned closure.
“We expect to negotiate at every union store that was shocked, like we did elsewhere, so workers can place them in another Starbucks store depending on their preference,” the union said.
Starbucks website offers the possibility of glimpse into the closure
Ad hoc efforts to identify closed stores began shortly after the announcement.
Public Google Sheets has over 200 entries likely to close in the second half of September 25th, and over 230 comments on potentially closed Reddit threads.
One comment shows a letter that appears to be placed at the door at Route 4 in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which reads “we have made the extremely difficult decision to close this Starbucks location by the end of this week.” The same letter was photographed in Ohio and Delaware locations by part of the USA Today network
An unofficial list included in Google Sheets shows 188 locations marked closed in the US, of which 67 are in California.
Please save the page where you find the locations on the sheet and where the threads were reviewed by USA Today. It indicates that stores will be closed starting Sunday, September 29th, but the company will not confirm that those locations are closed. Instead, it points to app updates.
In its most recent quarterly revenue release, the company said there will be around 18,300 coffee shops by the end of the fiscal year that closes this month. This means that as of June 29, 2025, there were approximately 430 locations in the US and Canada.
Starbucks previously announced that it would “pick up” 80-90 Starbucks in more than 20 states. The locations were “designed for mobile orders only and for quick pickups without waiting,” the company said at the time.
