There’s a Starbucks on every corner. It’s a joke you’ve probably made at least a few times before. Because sometimes, it really DOES seem like there’s one on every corner. But soon — if you’re looking to satisfy your craving for a Starbucks Mango Dragonfruit Refresher or a Starbucks Tea-ramisu Frappuccino — you might have to go to the next closest location.
CNN reports that Starbucks will close 150 of its stores in 2019. In reality, unless one of the 150 stores is your absolute favorite go-to location, you might not even notice the change. After all, it’s an average of just three locations closing per state, and most of the affected stores are in urban areas that already have multiple outposts. But still, they plan to close three times the average number of locations than they typically do every year. That’s sort of a big deal.
Why are the stores closing? As the coffee chain continues to expand, part of that growth includes knowing when to close up shop. Starbucks is making an effort to shutter the locations that are underperforming so they can better focus their efforts in different places. But they aren’t worried. In fact, they say it will allow them to better address their customers’ needs.
Closing so many locations is actually a good thing for Sbux devotees.
“Our recent performance does not reflect the potential of our exceptional brand and is not acceptable,” Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson said in a statement. “We must move faster to address the more rapidly changing preferences and needs of our customers. Over the past year we have taken several actions to streamline the company, positioning us to increase our innovation agility as an organization and enhance focus on our core value drivers which serve as the foundation to re-accelerate growth and create long-term shareholder value.”
Even though they’re closing 150 stores, they still have plans to open new ones.
The company plans to open stores in new, less saturated markets, and continue expanding overseas in China. They’re also working on redesigning the Starbucks Rewards program and creating new, healthier drinks. So you may have to find a new neighborhood Starbucks next year, but it sounds like it’ll be worth it.
If your fave Starbucks location does close, there’s an app that helps you discover all the different kinds of coffee shops around you. It’s called Beanhunter, and you can download it from the Apple store. Google Play offers something similar called Coffee Finder. Keep calm, and coffee on.
