Starbucks to Shutter 150 Stores

The coffeehouse chain, while having more locations than McDonald’s, will be closing around three times as many units as it usually does.

June 22, 2018

SEATTLE – Starbucks will shut down 150 stores in 2019, a three-fold bump in the usual number of units closed for poor performance, CNN Money reports. The closures were part of the company’s report to investors, which also included same-store sales growth of 1% for the next quarter.

“Our recent performance does not reflect the potential of our exceptional brand and is not acceptable,” said Kevin Johnson, Starbucks CEO, in a statement. “We must move faster to address the more rapidly changing preferences and needs of our customers.”

During a conference call with investors this week, Johnson didn’t excuse the lower growth rate, but did offer this explanation: “In this last quarter, we had an unplanned initiative related to the incident in Philadelphia that culminated in closing stores.” On May 29, Starbucks closed 8,000 stores for mandatory anti-bias training to 175,000 workers.

Starbucks will go after the health and wellness market by bringing out more healthful drinks such as low-sugar iced tea. The company also will devise more ways to get people to sign up for its app. Despite the planned closures, Starbucks has more locations than McDonald’s, and the chain indicated it would be in track to open 2,300 net new stores across the world in fiscal 2018.

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