Customers and employees were given two-day notice of closure, as Starbucks undergoes national restructuring
By GIA LOOMIS — city@theaggie.org
In late September, hundreds of Starbucks employees received the news that their stores were set to shut down within the next week. This mass closure of stores includes the Starbucks location frequented by UC Davis students on the corner of 2nd Street in Downtown Davis. Other Starbucks locations in Davis are currently set to remain open.
On Sept. 25, Starbucks’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Brian Niccol, announced that they would be making changes to their coffeehouses by closing underperforming locations, along with reducing non-retail partner roles by eliminating over 900 employees. This message broadly outlined that, with Starbucks’ new fiscal year ending, they plan to close hundreds of locations that are financially unfeasible and cut non-retail expenses as a part of their “Back to Starbucks” plan.
“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,” Niccol said in a statement on Starbucks’ website.
While Niccol explained his plan to close some Starbucks locations, the message did not include information on the timeframe or which locations would be closing. The announcement simply stated that around 18,300 locations would remain open between the United States and Canada, a large drop from the previous 18,734 locations from their most recent quarterly report.
Yet, the largest concern surfacing from the immediate closure of over 400 stores is the widespread job loss. Niccol explained Starbucks’ plan to deal with this downsizing.
“Partners in coffeehouses scheduled to close will be notified this week,” Niccol said. “We’re working hard to offer transfers to nearby locations where possible and will move quickly to help partners understand what opportunities might be available to them. For those we can’t immediately place, we’re focused on partner care, including comprehensive severance packages.”
The Downtown Davis Starbucks location housed around 15 employees, and, when the closure was announced, they were promised either transfers or severance packages. Gray Engstrom, a fourth-year theater and dance major who worked at the location for two years, explained that little to no employees have received transfers.
“Almost all my coworkers and I got news today [October 1] that we have been laid off and are receiving severance,” said Engstrom. “I have yet to hear of anyone who has actually gotten a transfer.”
While this location is not the only Starbucks set to close due to this restructuring plan, it is one of the quickest turnovers, as employees were notified of the closure on Sept. 25 and the store was officially closed to the public on Sept. 27. The public was notified of the closure by a paper stuck on the front door stating that the location was now closed.
This two-day closure raised some concerns for former Starbucks employees, who questioned if the decision to close the store was due only to financial underperformance — as stated in Niccol’s announcement — or possibly the recent unionization of this location. This location was the 58th Starbucks in California to unionize to seek better pay, schedules and working conditions.
Engstrom expanded on the store’s recent unionization despite a lack of support.
“We officially unionized on Aug. 27 of 2025,” Engstrom said. “The decision was definitely not supported by upper management. They had another store manager continuously come into our store and pull employees aside and discuss negative aspects of unionization.”
Suspicion grew among the employees that the rapid closure of the Starbucks was not due to its financial underperformance, but possible disapproval of its unionization. Engstrom continued by explaining the reasoning store workers were given for the closure.
“We were not given an official reason for store closure, but [Starbucks said] it is due to our lack of profit,” Engstrom said. “However, [that] was probably not the only thing that was considered in the closure, since we had recently unionized. Before closing we had just been picking up in business, since all the students were coming back.”
Employees and supporters organized a picket outside of the downtown location on Sept. 27. Brooke Allen, a barista and fourth-year communication major, helped to organize and promote the picket and explained their goals in hosting it.
“By organizing a picket outside our store on the last day of operations, our goal was to bring attention to the community and regular customers of how the company treats their ‘partners,’” Allen said. “We were pleased to have a turn out of both regular customers and employees at our picket and successfully got passersby to commit to boycotting Starbucks over their treatment of employees.”
In the upcoming days, Starbucks locations will likely continue to shut down until the company reaches around 18,300 locations for the upcoming fiscal year. In total, this will lead to between 400 to 500 store closures and thousands of employees laid off. Other Davis Starbucks locations are set to remain open, while several others are set to close in the Sacramento area. Visit Starbucks’ website for updated location information.
Written By: Gia Loomis — city@theaggie.org
