Starbucks Is Shuttering 7 Stores This Month—Here's Where
Starbucks fans in San Francisco won't have as many places to get their caffeine fix from the coffee giant by the end of this month.
The chain has confirmed that it will close seven stores in the California city effective Oct. 22, in a decision first reported last week by the San Francisco Business Times. However, the exact reasons behind the company's decision to shutter the locations weren't immediately clear.
In a statement shared with Eat This, Not That!, a Starbucks spokesperson said that the company analyzes its store portfolio every year and makes changes to better serve its customers. The spokesperson did not explain why each of the seven San Francisco stores will stop serving guests.
"Each year as a standard course of business, we evaluate the store portfolio to determine where we can best meet our community and customers' needs," the statement read. "This includes opening new locations, identifying stores in need of investment or renovation, exploring locations where an alternative format is needed and, in some instances, re-evaluating our footprint."
Jessica Borton, regional vice president for Starbucks Northern California, also sent out a letter to district managers informing them of the closures earlier this month. But while Borton said in that letter that it was a "very difficult decision" to shutter those locations, she didn't reveal exactly why they're closing.
Here are the addresses of all the closing San Francisco Starbucks stores:
- 201 Mission Street
- 442 Geary Street
- 425 Battery Street
- 398 Market Street
- 780 Market Street
- 555 California Street
- 1401 Van Ness Avenue
While the loss of the seven cafes means that Starbucks fans won't have as many shops in the area to choose from, there will still be 52 operating cafes in the city even after the closures. The company has opened or reopened three stores in downtown San Francisco in the past six months and it's also renovating four others. Meanwhile, the employees at the closing stores will have the opportunity to transfer to other locations, Borton said in the letter.
The closure news comes a little more than a year after the coffee giant abruptly closed 16 of its stores in several major cities. These closures included six in Starbucks' hometown of Seattle, six in the Los Angeles area, two in Portland, Ore., one in Philadelphia, Pa., and one in Washington, D.C. At the time, Starbucks said it decided to shutter those stores due to a surge in crime—including drug use—in those cafes, which rendered them unsafe for both employees and customers.
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