Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

marshd1000
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Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by marshd1000 »

Starbucks is also closing some stores in the Puget Sound area for the same reason. This includes the iconic triangular shaped store in the plaza in front of Westlake Center! Back in the day this was a very busy high profile store! They might as well tear that building down as it is more suited for a coffee stand and who will want to go there now! I also fully expect the Flagship Nordstrom to leave Downtown Seattle in 5 years or less. That shows my lack of confidence in government and the courts to make a once awesome downtown vital again and safe! My heart cries for my hometown. PS……I know both liberals and conservatives who cry for Seattle!

Here’s the link to the story: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/starbu ... ce=twitter
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by babs »

Two stores in Portland closing. 4th and Morrison downtown and one in the Gateway District. Downtown Portland used to have one on nearly every corner. At least 2/3s have closed.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by Brian Lutz »

Full list here: https://www.businessinsider.com/starbuc ... ist-2022-7

6 locations closing in Los Angeles and Hollywood (most notably Hollywood and Vine), 2 in Portland, 5 in Seattle, 1 in Everett, and 1 each in Philadelphia and DC

I used to work in the 505 Union Station building in Seattle where one of the closures is happening. It's right next to the International District transit station, and seemed to do pretty good business with commuters when I worked there, but that area has a lot of potentially violent homeless people (you'd often see some of the same ones say after day) so it's understandable that security could become a problem there. The Westlake "triangle" location was at one point one of the single most expensive pieces of real estate in terms of cost per square foot in Seattle.

The Everett location is at the intersection of Highway 99 and Airport Road near Paine Field and is an area I'm not too familiar with, but my wife made a recent visit to the Home Depot at that intersection and described it as scary. The last time I was there they had marked police cars providing security in the parking lot, and an area fenced off to prevent camping. Google Maps already reports this location as permanently closed as of 7 weeks ago, so the closure would have happened some time in early May. Reviews report that they have been operating as drive thru only for some time now.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by SamSpade »

babs wrote: July 12th, 2022, 12:49 pm 4th and Morrison downtown and one in the Gateway District. Downtown Portland used to have one on nearly every corner. At least 2/3s have closed.
4th/Morrison was unfortunately very prone to being a vandalism target for the 'anarchists' that still utilize any excuse of unrest in the country to vandalize (but now, not so much, loot) chain properties downtown. The city police bureau continues to state they have too few sworn officers to intervene in these unplanned marches. It is true that many of the downtown Portland locations have closed, but for now the most visible at Pioneer Square, remains. This store also has no customer restroom.

The Gateway store, unless it has moved, was small. It's had an interesting life. It was one of the 24/7 locations in Portland which existed until about a decade ago. Their hours have been severely neutered ever since. Even well before the pandemic restrictions, I'd been there with some friends around 8 years ago and the restrooms were closed to customers in the latter half of store hours of operation. (I believe at that time it was open until 10) That store could not be convereted to a drive through, but many others have opened since and nearby so that might be a part of that puzzle.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by Brian Lutz »

Another article I found on this says that all of the Seattle locations closing were targets for vandalism and/or looting during the George Floyd riots in 2020 (for the downtown ones near Westlake it's likely they get vandalized any time some sort of "protest" or May Day march comes through town, and the Westlake one got trashed pretty badly during the WTO riots many years ago when I believe it was still a Seattle's Best..) Looking at reviews, it seems that all the ones I have looked at closed their bathrooms some time ago, with many of the negative reviews being due to lack of restrooms. A lot of them also no longer offered any seating. A couple of the closures are well outside of Downtown though, so I don't know much about those ones.
Last edited by Brian Lutz on July 12th, 2022, 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by buckguy »

Union Station in DC has 2 of them. I'm guessing that this is the small one that rarely has business and is away from most of the other businesses.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by Alpha8472 »

San Francisco does not have a problem with anarchists. The anarchists are probably frightened by the hardcore drug dealers with their guns out in the open. Or the multiple deranged homeless people who carry machetes.

Seattle is an anarchist magnet. Twenty something young people who nothing better to do. It is a different type of demographic in Seattle.

Out in the suburbs, Starbucks has closed many stores in middle class and rich suburbs in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am shocked as the middle class people loved to sit and chat at Starbucks, but the sales figures were too low to keep the stores open.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on July 12th, 2022, 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by Brian Lutz »

In Seattle, the Anarchist/revolutionary socialist types seem to be mostly clustered around Capitol Hill (CHAZ/CHOP) and Fremont (which is also where a lot of the Starbucks locations that voted to unionize are located), while the Central Business District (particularly around Pioneer Square and the Pike Place / Westlake Center area) gets all the drug addicts and catch-and-release criminals (some people can be arrested and released without charges hundreds of times before they finally end up committing a violent felony of some sort that gets them actually put into prison.) The King County Courthouse in Pioneer Square has been a particularly bad area for years now, to the point that there's a now program to provide security escorts for courthouse employees and jurors to various transit centers after a number of random assaults outside the courthouse (and an attempted rape inside the courthouse) in 2021. Back in April someone smashed 18 of the courthouse windows with a golf club, and does not appear to have been caught.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by storewanderer »

Starbucks has closed hundreds of locations over the years and I've never seen them release a closure list.

Now we get a closure list for 16 locations? This is quite interesting. It is like Starbucks is complaining about all these areas with out of control homeless who are causing trouble.

Most of these locations have another Starbucks nearby anyway.

Interesting that Seattle Union Station is being given up. Would think that would be a viable location. I guess as more and more people leave these city centers, there is just not as much need along what was previously a very busy commuter path..

Also 1600 East Olive Way in Seattle... surprised to see that one go too. Maybe it was too large to be profitable.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by Brian Lutz »

https://komonews.com/news/local/starbuc ... on-busting
https://komonews.com/news/local/starbuc ... shut-downs

The union organizing efforts at Starbucks are now organizing pickets at the Reserve Roastery location in Seattle, claiming that the store closures are being aimed at union organizing efforts with safety being used as an excuse.
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