Starbucks is shutting roughly 250 North American cafes this week at a cost of about $300 million. Same-store sales in the U.S. rose 7.9% last quarter. The company still expects to end the year with more stores than it started with.
Starbucks is closing about 250 cafes across North America, starting this week.
The company disclosed the closures Thursday in a regulatory filing. They’ll cost roughly $300 million in restructuring charges.
Sales are actually going up
Companies usually close stores because business is bad. That’s not what happened here.
Starbucks reported 7.9% growth in U.S. same-store sales during its most recent quarter. CEO Brian Niccol said in the July earnings report that it “was the quarter our momentum became truly measurable.”
Sales returned to growth about a year ago and have kept climbing since.
So Starbucks is pruning stores in the middle of a turnaround that appears to be working.
The store count is still going up this year
This is the context most coverage will skip.
Starbucks is closing stores but 440 net new cafes arrived in fiscal 2026. That’s net, meaning after subtracting closures.
The company will finish the year with more locations than it started with, even after shutting 250.
Starbucks is closing weak locations and opening stronger ones somewhere else. The total footprint grows while the underperformers disappear.
Why these specific stores
Starbucks gave two reasons.
Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams told employees Thursday that the targeted cafes either aren’t producing adequate financial results or can’t deliver the kind of experience the company wants for customers and staff.
“Some coffeehouses continue to underperform despite the hard work and commitment of all of you,” Grams wrote.
That second reason ties into Niccol’s Back to Starbucks strategy, which has focused on redesigning cafes, simplifying the menu and pushing the chain back toward being a place people sit down in rather than a pickup window.
Some stores simply can’t be turned into that, no matter what the sales numbers say.
What happens to the workers
Starbucks says it plans to move baristas from closing stores into nearby locations where possible.
Employees who leave instead will be offered severance.
The company has not said how many workers are affected in total.
Where the $300 million goes
About $200 million covers ending leases early and paying employee separation benefits. The remaining $100 million is a noncash charge tied to disposing of and writing down company-owned store assets.
Most of the closures will be finished before the end of fiscal 2026. Starbucks’ fiscal year ends later this month.
Starbucks hasn’t said which stores
No list has been released.
Customers will find out the ordinary way. Signs are expected to go up at affected cafes this weekend, and the closures will show up in the Starbucks app.
If your regular location is on the list, that is probably how you’ll learn.
Starbucks also did not say how many of the closing stores are unionized.
This is the second round in two years
Niccol took over as CEO in September 2024. This is his second wave of closures.
The first came in September 2025, when Starbucks shut 627 stores across the U.S. and Europe and laid off 900 nonretail employees. That was part of a board-approved restructuring plan estimated at roughly $1 billion, with 90% of the cost falling on the North American business.
In May 2026, the company cut another 300 corporate jobs and closed some underused U.S. offices.
As of late June, Starbucks operated 11,149 company-owned cafes in North America, down about 300 from a year earlier.
How big Starbucks actually is
Two numbers get used in coverage of this, and they measure different things.
Starbucks has more than 18,000 locations in North America. That figure includes licensed stores inside grocery chains, airports, and similar spots.
The 11,149 figure counts only cafes the company owns and operates directly.
The 250 closures are company-operated cafes. Against the larger number, that’s about 1%. Against company-operated stores specifically, it’s closer to 2%.
Either way, most people will never notice. Unless it’s your store.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
CNBC (Sept. 24, 2026), the closure count, the $300 million breakdown, the 440 net new cafe projection and the fiscal 2026 timeline
CNN Business (Sept. 24, 2026), the 7.9% same-store sales figure, the Niccol quote, the store signage timing and the company statement
Quartz (Sept. 24, 2026), the Mike Grams quote, the barista transfer and severance details, the 2025 restructuring breakdown and the 11,149 company-operated store count
Reuters via Fox affiliates (Sept. 24, 2026), the September 2025 closure of 627 stores, the 900 and 300 corporate layoffs and the unionization disclosure gap
Starbucks Corp. SEC filings (2026), the Back to Starbucks restructuring plan details
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