Starbucks Closing 150 Locations: Are Wisconsin Stores At Risk?

WISCONSIN — Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee chain which apparently may be too ubiquitous for its own good, announced late Tuesday it plans to close an anticipated 150 locations by the end of 2019.

While the company has not yet said which locations will close, a notice to investors said the closures will affect "underperforming company-operated stores in its most densely penetrated markets" in urban areas.

There is no word whether the Milwaukee metro area could be one of those "densely penetrated markets." Today, there are nearly 50 stores in the Metro Milwaukee area.

Starbucks on Tuesday said the anticipated 150 store closings is up from a historical average of 50 closings per year. The company expects same-store sales to grow just 1 percent in the next quarter.

>>>We'll let you know what locations are closing when it's announced

"Our recent performance does not reflect the potential of our exceptional brand and is not acceptable," Kevin Johnson, Starbucks president and CEO, said in a statement. "We must move faster to address the more rapidly changing preferences and needs of our customers. Over the past year we have taken several actions to streamline the company, positioning us to increase our innovation agility as an organization and enhance focus on our core value drivers which serve as the foundation to re-accelerate growth and create long-term shareholder value."

Starbucks said it is "optimizing its U.S. store portfolio at a more rapid pace" in fiscal year 2019, " including shifting new company-operated store growth to under-penetrated markets, slowing licensed store growth" and closing the 150 underperforming stores.

Starbucks closed 8,000 locations, including in Wisconsin, the afternoon of May 29 for racial bias training after the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia location.

Image via David Allen/Patch