Starbucks is scaling back operations in Canada with plans to close up to 200 coffee shops across Canada over the next two years.
The Seattle-based chain made the revelation in a letter to stakeholders filed Wednesday morning with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:
Although new store development activity was temporarily paused in the Americas due to the onset of COVID-19, new store openings have now resumed. Building on the approximately 200 net new stores that were opened in the Americas through our second fiscal quarter, we now expect to open approximately 300 net new stores in fiscal 2020 for the segment, down from our original expectation of 600. This reflects the accelerated repositioning of a number of company-operated stores as we blend store formats and strategically optimize our portfolio primarily in U.S. urban markets as outlined above. This repositioning will include the closure of up to 400 company-operated stores over the next 18 months in conjunction with the opening, over time, of a greater number of new, repositioned stores in different locations and with innovative store formats, yielding a U.S. portfolio that is optimized to enhance the customer experience, expand our retail presence and enable profitable growth for the future.
The relevant part:
“As part of the ongoing assessment of our physical store footprint, we typically close approximately 100 company-operated stores annually in the Americas, primarily due to lease expirations, trade-area shifts and other market conditions. In addition to the U.S. store repositioning described above, we will restructure our company-operated business in Canada over the next two years, with the potential of up to 200 additional stores being closed, with some of those stores being repositioned.”
