Starbucks’ footprint in San Diego County is moving from grande to slightly less so.
The Seattle-based coffee company announced last week that it is shuttering approximately 1% of its 18,000 stores across the U.S. by the end of this year, as part of a strategy shift.
Six stores in San Diego and one in Encinitas are expected to be among those closing:
4134 Adams Avenue, across from the Kensington-Normal Heights Library and Kensington Cafe
7415 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., between Interstate 805 and Convoy Street
7750 Copley Park Place, south of state Route 52 and west of Convoy Street
9449 Kearny Mesa Road, just west of Interstate 15, off Miramar Road
3675 Murphy Canyon Road, in the Stonecrest Plaza shopping center
111 W. Harbor Drive, inside the San Diego Convention Center Lobby
The Encinitas store is at 1560 Leucadia Blvd., just west of El Camino Real
Workers will be moved to others stores when possible, the company told them.
One store, on Murphy Canyon Road, is unionized, according to a Starbucks Workers United map. Four other unionized stores in the county are not expected to be impacted by these closures.
Several of the closed stores are near other Starbucks. Even with these closures, some pockets of San Diego have multiple Starbucks within several blocks or at the same shopping center. A 1.5-mile stretch of Point Loma, around Midway Drive and Sports Arena Boulevard, has six Starbucks.
Shuttering some stores is one piece in a bigger strategy that includes remodeling 1,500 cafes and overhauling the Starbucks coffeehouse experience. The goal is to return in some ways to the company’s roots, where a coffeeshop visit was more about hanging out and finding a sense of connection over a cup of coffee or espresso rather than grabbing a drink to go — or rushing in to use the bathroom, with or without a purchase.
The approximately 250 stores that are closing didn’t fit in with that vision, a company executive said last week.
“We have carefully reviewed our North America coffeehouse portfolio and identified locations where we do not believe we can consistently deliver the experience we want for customers and partners or where we don’t see a path to acceptable financial performance,” Mike Grams, the company’s chief operating officer, said in a memo to workers about the closures.
“We’re making this decision for a simple reason: we want every Starbucks coffeehouse to be a place customers love and partners are proud to work,” he added.
Grams also touted recently improved financial performance, faster service and “warmer, more welcoming coffeehouses.” A slowdown in sales led Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol to launch a turnaround plan two years ago, which included revamping cafes and rethinking its approach to customer service.
At one freshly closed store, in New York, a sign in the door let passers by know: “We’ve made the very difficult decision to close this Starbucks location by the end of this week. We know this may be hard to hear — because this isn’t just any store. It’s your coffeehouse, a place woven into your daily rhythm, where memories were made and meaningful connections with our partners grew,” a post on that location’s Instagram account said.
Starbucks closed a store in San Bernardino over the weekend. Stores posted similar letters, across the U.S. (Fielding Buck, San Bernardino Sun/SCNG)
The company did not disclose which stores are closing, but a third party compiled a list of locations that closed or are expected to close by looking at the company’s app, SFGate reported. A search on the Starbucks app Monday morning matched this finding, with six locations absent and one marked as closed.
