Starbucks plans to close 250 North American coffeehouses by week's end, about 1% of its roughly 18,000 stores. It says the undisclosed sites cannot consistently deliver its desired experience for customers and partners or lack a path to acceptable financial performance.
The closures are part of CEO Brian Niccol’s plan to make service faster and friendlier. Starbucks says closures, layoffs and store-level changes have helped it record four straight quarters of sales growth after six quarters of decline; COO Mike Grams said North America had returned to strong growth.
A year earlier, Starbucks closed 627 stores in North America and Europe and laid off 900 non-retail employees. One Reddit user who claimed to be an employee said their store received one day’s notice of its closure; other users also criticized the latest move.
