OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:00 PM – Thursday, September 25, 2025
Starbucks has announced plans to shutter its more “unprofitable” locations and slash 900 non-retail positions in order to reconsolidate the company — as part of a $1 billion restructuring plan.
The closures are expected to reduce the company’s store count to about 18,300 locations by the end of fiscal year 2025, down from 18,734 as of June 29th. The announcement, made on Thursday, noted that the coffee giant’s store count is expected to decrease by 1% within the U.S. and Canada.
On Thursday, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol released a lengthy blog post, sent to employees, where he notified them of imminent “severance and support packages including benefits extensions.”
“We will continue to carefully manage costs and stay focused on the key areas that drive long-term growth,” Niccol wrote. “During the review, we identified coffeehouses where we’re unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect, or where we don’t see a path to financial performance, and these locations will be closed … Each year, we open and close coffeehouses for a variety of reasons, from financial performance to lease expirations. This is a more significant action that we understand will impact partners and customers. Our coffeehouses are centers of the community, and closing any location is difficult,” he added.
Additionally, the CEO revealed that the corporation is investing in improving customer experience, staffing, and technology.
“These steps are to reinforce what we see is working and prioritize our resources against them. Early results from coffeehouse uplifts show customers visiting more often, staying longer, and sharing positive feedback. Where we’ve invested in more green apron partners working at busy times, we saw improvements in transactions, sales, and service times, alongside happier, more engaged partners,” Niccol wrote.
Starbucks has seen around a 9% increase in shares since Niccol, the former CEO of Chipotle, became the CEO in August 2024.
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