Starbucks will close about 250 Starbucks store locations across North America later this week, and the company says the cuts will affect partners, customers and communities at those sites. Mike Grams announced the move on Thursday after Starbucks said most of its North America stores remain profitable.
Grams said the company had reviewed its North America coffeehouse portfolio and found locations where it could not consistently deliver the experience it wants for customers and partners or where it did not see a path to acceptable financial performance. He said, "As a result, we will close approximately 250 coffeehouses later this week. This represents approximately 1% of our more than 18,000 North America coffeehouses."
Mike Grams on Starbucks portfolio
Grams also said, "Closing any coffeehouse is a difficult decision, and we know today’s news will be hard for the partners, customers and communities affected." The company’s own numbers show the scale of the change: about 250 closures out of more than 18,000 North America coffeehouses. That is a small share of the total footprint, but it still removes stores from neighborhoods that depend on them for work, routine visits and local traffic.
Starbucks and Florida resolution
The closures come days after Starbucks resolved a DEI lawsuit in Florida last week and agreed to pay Florida $1 million. Under that settlement, Starbucks will not use race- and sex-based goals, quotas and preferences in employment practices companywide, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office said the agreement applies to all Starbucks operations nationwide.
Uthmeier said, "Every Floridian deserves to be hired, promoted and compensated based on merit, qualifications and character — not race or sex." He also said, "This resolution ensures that Starbucks’ policies and practices fully comply with Florida’s civil rights laws. DEI can never be an excuse to violate civil rights."
For customers and partners at the affected Starbucks store locations, the immediate question is which stores are on the list. Starbucks said the closures will happen later this week, but it has not identified the specific coffeehouses in this announcement.
