Starbucks Closing 250 North American Stores, Booking $300 Million in Charges

Starbucks told employees Thursday it's closing 250 stores across North America, disclosing the move in a regulatory filing and a staff memo from Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams.

The closures amount to roughly 1% of Starbucks' more than 18,000 North American locations, according to the company. Most are expected to shut down by the end of fiscal 2026, which closes September 30, according to Reuters. Starbucks says the move will generate about $300 million in restructuring charges.

What Grams Told Staff

"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," Grams wrote, according to the Epoch Times.

Grams said most of Starbucks' 18,000 North American stores are profitable and that closing some while opening others is a routine part of running the business. He said Starbucks is "actively developing a strong pipeline of new coffeehouses" and remains committed to North American growth.

Affected baristas will be offered transfers to other locations where possible. Workers with no open position to move into will get severance, the company said.

Starbucks has not disclosed which specific locations are closing or how the 250 break down between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Daily Hive reported that a Starbucks representative confirmed the company will not say how many Canadian stores are affected. Employees and customers in specific cities won't know their status until the closures actually happen, reportedly as early as this week.

Not the First Round

This is the second major wave of closures under CEO Brian Niccol, who left Chipotle to take over Starbucks in September 2024. In September 2025, Starbucks shut 627 stores across North America and Europe, including its flagship Seattle Roastery, and laid off about 900 non-retail employees. That earlier restructuring carried an estimated price tag of roughly $1 billion, according to Reuters, broken into about $150 million in employee separation costs, $400 million in store asset write-downs, and $450 million in accelerated lease costs, according to Quartz.

Niccol has also been cutting corporate headcount well beyond the store closures. Starbucks eliminated around 2,000 corporate roles the prior year, then cut more than 200 additional corporate staff in August, including workers in store design and technology who declined to relocate to the company's new Nashville office, according to the Wall Street Journal as reported by Quartz. Another 300 U.S. corporate positions were cut earlier this year alongside the shutdown of regional offices in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Burbank, California. Niccol has set a target of cutting $2 billion in costs company-wide by the end of fiscal 2028.

The Numbers Behind the Cuts

Starbucks had 11,149 company-owned and operated stores in North America as of late June, down roughly 300 from a year earlier, according to company figures cited by Quartz. The company has also trimmed its global expansion plans, now targeting about 440 net new company-operated and licensed stores in fiscal 2026, down from an earlier target of 600 to 650, according to Reuters as reported by Hindustan Times. Most new store growth going forward is expected outside North America.

Starbucks has posted four consecutive quarters of comparable-sales growth as of July 2026, according to Reuters. Grams told employees the North American business "has returned to strong growth." This combination raises a question from anyone watching the labor side: if sales are recovering, why keep cutting stores and jobs? Starbucks' answer, laid out in Grams' memo, is that averages hide the losers. Some locations simply can't hit acceptable financial performance no matter how the broader chain is doing, and the company would rather redirect capital toward the 1,500 stores it's renovating under the "Back to Starbucks" plan than prop up underperformers indefinitely.

The Seattle Backdrop

Separately, Niccol was among 38 Seattle-area business leaders, alongside Microsoft's Brad Smith and executives from Costco, Nordstrom, and Alaska Airlines, who sent Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson a letter this month demanding a concrete public safety plan with a deadline and a budget, according to the Daily Signal. The letter cited Nordstrom's own data showing police responded to just 29% of 911 calls from its downtown Seattle flagship store, compared to a reported 100% response rate at its suburban locations. That letter is a separate matter from the store closures and isn't tied to them in any company statement, but it underscores that Starbucks' hometown headquarters sits in a city its own CEO has publicly criticized this month.