Starbucks Is Closing 250 More Stores After Shuttering Hundreds Just Last Year

What happens when your regular Starbucks suddenly disappears from the neighborhood? For some customers across North America, that could soon become reality as the coffee giant prepares another round of store closures. The move comes while Starbucks is trying to reshape its sprawling coffeehouse network, and it follows another significant round of closures announced only about a year earlier.

Starbucks COO Mike Grams told employees that the company is closing 250 stores across North America. The affected locations represent just over 1% of the chain’s network of more than 18,000 stores across the continent. The company has not disclosed exactly how many of those closures will occur in the United States or provided a complete list of the locations affected.

The closures are not happening in isolation. Around the same time last year, Starbucks announced plans to close more than 400 stores across the country while also cutting hundreds of corporate jobs. This latest reduction is part of a broader effort to evaluate which coffeehouses fit into the company’s plans and which locations are no longer delivering the customer experience or financial performance Starbucks wants.

Starbucks Is Taking a Closer Look at Every Coffeehouse

According to Grams, Starbucks reviewed its North American portfolio and identified locations where it did not believe it could consistently deliver the experience it wanted for customers and employees, or where it could not see a path toward acceptable financial performance. That means the 250-store closure plan is focused on locations Starbucks considers underperforming.

The evaluation is tied to CEO Brian Niccol’s multi-year turnaround effort and the company’s “Back to Starbucks” plan. Grams said implementing that strategy has given Starbucks a clearer picture of how individual coffeehouses are performing. While some locations have improved, others have continued to underperform, helping drive the decision to close another group of stores.

At the same time, Starbucks is not simply pulling back everywhere. The company is progressing with plans to update roughly 1,500 locations as part of the turnaround. That combination of renovations and closures suggests the strategy is less about broadly shrinking the chain and more about deciding which existing coffeehouses Starbucks believes can support its long-term plans.

The Closures Come With a Significant Price Tag

Closing hundreds of locations is expected to be expensive. In a regulatory filing, Starbucks said it anticipates approximately $300 million in restructuring charges related to the closures. The figure underscores the scale of the changes even though 250 stores represent only a small percentage of the company’s overall North American network.

Starbucks has also lowered its expectations for net new store openings during its current fiscal year. The company now forecasts approximately 440 net new locations, down from its previous estimate of 600 to 650. That revision comes alongside the closure announcement and offers another indication of how the company’s near-term store strategy is being adjusted.

For customers wondering whether their neighborhood Starbucks is affected, however, there is still uncertainty. The company did not specify how many of the 250 closures would take place in the United States, nor did it provide detailed information identifying every location. That means the national number is clear, but the local impact may not be immediately obvious to individual customers.

Starbucks Still Has Expansion in Its Plans

Two consecutive years of sizable closure announcements could make it appear that Starbucks is simply retreating across North America, but the company’s stated long-term strategy is more complicated. Despite closing underperforming locations, Grams said Starbucks still plans to expand its North American footprint over the long term.

That puts the latest closures into a broader context. Starbucks is simultaneously shutting locations it considers unable to meet its expectations, updating roughly 1,500 existing coffeehouses and continuing to open new stores. Rather than treating every location equally, the company is using its turnaround effort to reassess how individual stores fit into the larger network.

For regular customers, the most noticeable consequence may simply be a longer trip for their usual coffee if a nearby location is among those selected to close. For Starbucks, however, the 250 closures are another piece of a much larger effort to reshape its North American business. After more than 400 planned closures were announced around this time last year, the latest round shows that the company’s store-by-store reassessment is still underway.