Adios, Starbucks: The 88 closing California stores, mapped

Click here to check out our map. I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Do you see an interesting pattern or theme as to where the closings are? Before you go too far into the "foreclosure-store closure connection" (a path I headed down briefly, and turned back), consider that the store at Lincoln and Montana in Santa Monica is closing, and that's pretty much a foreclosure-free zone. If you'd prefer to browse a simple table of all the closings instead of the map, I've got this to offer as well.

Posted by Pete Viles
Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com

Comments

[MG]

I really like Starbucks coffee and I'm sad to read of the closings. Like them or not, Starbucks revolutionized the standards for coffee and I for one, drink their coffee each and every morning on my way to work. Because I'm frugal, I buy the whole bean Brazil Ipanema Bourbon, Starbuck's employees grind the beans for free, and I brew it myself.

Also, I travel frequently between CA & AZ and stop in the Coachella Valley for coffee. Starbucks and Coffee Bean have a dense concentration in many locales and I'm thinking that has bearing on which stores to close.

I won't consider McDonald's. Not a chance.

[TakeFive]

Companies close underperforming stores all the time. Nothihng unusual.

What would be interesting is to know when these stores were built. Are they last opened / first closed, representing the tide going back out?

Earlier poster mentioned that with a few execptions these stores are in lower income areas. Seems logical these residents would be the first to give up the foo-foo drinks.

[Jon]

The majority of the closures are in lower income bracket neighborhoods, where paying more for a gallon of coffee than for a gallon of gas makes even less sense than logic.

[metin]

Newport Beach and Newport Coast, as well as Irvine not affected...

Even though Pete's and Coffee Bean are better alternatives!

[Laura]

Agree with Roman...

I believe that Starbucks is starting to feel the competition from real coffee houses. Perhaps some people have finally become more demanding for a good cup of coffee. I want to believe that but then Coffee Bean is still open and their stuff is disgusting. I have both near me, as I'm sure everybody does. I don't go to either. Their tea is terrible. What is wrong with people???

[desmo]

When I first saw the headline I thought holy S, 1/2 the Starbucks are closing here in Valencia.

[sj]

3 closures in San Gabriel Valley (Alhambra, Monterey Park, and South El Monte). There aren't many Starbucks in San Gabriel Valley to begin with. Starbucks can't compete with the boba drinks and shaved ice that are more preferrable to Asian taste. There's never a Starbucks in Chinatown either.

[TomServo]

How did the iPhone get lumped in with Starbucks trash?

Yeah, only hipster Appleheads want a combination of the best music/video player on the planet with a full-featured browser, quality camera, Google-mapping, and so forth.

I'm an Apple basher (generally), and I couldn't pass up the iPhone when the price drop hit. It has nothing to do with image and everything to do with quality and simplicity. My previous 3 devices (phone, mp3, camera) became one slim device that has a long charge and uses USB.

[Laker]

Starbucks employees use to buy house in the 2004-2007 heydays...using the option ARM teaser 80/20 liar loans.
Today the landing standards have changed, and these no longer could get 10 miles from qualifying for the houses they use to buy.
So the fact that they are losing jobs is sad personally, but is no issue at all as far as real estate. At the end of the day, even the managers at these locations are financially renters.
Next.

[jaded]

we don't drink coffee, but we get those $5 Starbucks gift cards all the time. We find it kind of funny to go to Starbucks on a hot day and spend $5 on 2 small cups of iced tea (no refills!).

I can't muster any surprise, concern or sympathy on this one.

[Enlightenment]

I heard they are closing most of the 9 Starbucks on my block.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

Joah, I got something for you.

I can't claim authorship on this one; it came from some guest blogger on the London Telegraph.

It goes something like this: Writing should be like a woman's skirt, or for you feminists and male-chauvinism-vigilantes out there, a Scotsman's kilt - long enough to cover the important things, but short enough to be interesting.

By the way, that's not how I address, but it is how I hope we all write. And if you can put what you want to say in a haiku, more power to you.

[Milla]

hallelujah. they should close all of them down.

on the flipside, there is a starbucks opening up on the corner of eagle rock and york in highland park, though i'd rather get a coffee bean, or perhaps a target.

[Milla]

make that an apple store.

[Inland Empire]

The two store in Victorville are less than two years old. One store is within eye site to the other store. The other is walk-in distance to it. It was over build out here 7 store in a year to much coffee in a places where it's desert hot for 10 months of the year. People can't even sit outside like most location because its to darn hot.

[Tim]

I noticed none are closing in the South Bay; none in Torrance or Redondo, even Gardena and Harbor City were spared. I suppose the stores with the lowest revenue were closed. The same thing happened to them that happened to McDonald's: they got so big they started going for cost savings, like roasting the coffee at a central location. No more coffee aroma in the stores. They also began with an environmental emphasis, but now many have drive-throughs, which are detrimental to the environment.

[Sue]

Poor Peter Noone! Where will he go for his Starbucks?

[Laura]

Starbucks will close 600 stores, 88 is just a start....

Coffee Bean should start closing some stores also, in fact close them all.

I wish they would close the one near me and put in Intelligentsia...that would be so nice. Real coffee and real tea...what a concept.

[So Glad I've Paid Down the Principal]

They might be closing 88 stores in California, but they are actually opening more stores in the city of Los Angeles than they are closing them. According to the list, there is only one store shutting its doors within city limits.

And right now, there's one being built on corner of York Blvd. in Eagle Rock. There's also one opening on Washington near Crenshaw. And who knows how many more...So, actually, like the housing crisis, it's really only effecting likes of Victorville, Fontana, Brea, Rancho Crapamongo, Hemet, Ontario, The Inland Empire ghetto, etc.

If you can't afford a house, just start looking in those neighborhoods. If you are expecting Starbucks to start closing en masse in Pasadena, Silverlake, Hollywood, Bev. Hills, Miracile Mile, the West Side, you better just buckle down, paint your apartment and keep waiting.

[Bill]

If you notice, must of the closing are in the hard hits areas of the RE market. I guess most of the big spenders left town already.

[sandiegan]

Based on some of the closings in San Diego, yes, this IS directly related to the RE downturn.

Three of the closings in San Diego:

2990 El Cajon Blvd. (at 30th Street)

Well, if working-girls all drank coffee, then this place might not have closed. This Bux was meant to anchor the corner in a revitalization project along El Cajon Blvd (the Gaza Strip of Mid-City San Diego). The project was mixed use development that took up 3/4 of the entire square block. It was made up of low-cost senior rentals, retail, market-rate townhomes, and low-income townhomes.

Let's just say sales were a bit slow and the retail tenants, aside from Bux and maybe one or two other low-traffic enterprises, failed to materialize.
A gas station across the street was razed in anticipation of the gentrification of the corner. It is now an empty lot with a chain-link fence around it.

3830 Park Blvd. (at University Avenue)

This Bux was another corner located "anchor" for a new condo construction. Unlike the 30th and Hell Cajon Blvd site, this complex, called "The Egyptian", is located a couple miles away in festive Hillcrest. A very, very nice upscale, concrete mid-rise. It sold pretty well, but values have fallen and retail tenants have been very slow to occupy the bottom floor.

And maybe the locals just prefer the Cafe on Park OR Urban Grind--right across the street.

1122 Broadway Ave. (at 11th Avenue)

This closing is indisputably tied to the RE downturn. This Bux is located in one the properties that was supposed to be a showcase and draw to Center City East in San Diego called SmartCorner.

It's a striking 20+story, wedge shaped complex of 2 buildings housing condos, offices and retail all wrapped around a trolley stop the cuts through a narrow canyon between the buildings. (A bit windy in there.)

This property was located between 11th and The-Street-Formerly-Known-As-"12th", but redesignated "Park Blvd" (yes, technically it does extend Park Blvd) to get rid of the unsavory taste that 12 th St had for locals. It was one of the worst streets in all of downtown San Diego.

The downturn has slowed construction in the area. The block just west, btw 10th & 11th, would definitely be a flattened memory by now, instead of remaining ugly, rundown and a bit dangerous. Across Broadway, a large tire store that burned to the cinderblocks in a strange fire many months ago remains a fenced-off, charred eyesore.

I'm sure they were counting on being the hub of a revitalization, but when the construction (and concomitant exodus of unsavory street life) stopped, I guess, the local foot traffic didn't materialize.

BTW: I think Sbux will be fine. They've got the brand recognition and market penetration to make it through a slump.

[Chris]

Starbucks has about 7100 standalone stores (that's what they had when they did that close-for-training thing). They are closing 616 stores. They are also opening quite a few, though significantly less than planned. This sounds like management has a pretty good idea of what they are doing in this environment.

[SD-Dee]

The one across from San Diego State U is closing, but there's still a Starbucks on campus, besides the myriad other coffee shops in the area catering to the SDSU staff & students. And the one in Mira Mesa closing still leaves 8-10 other ones in that neighborhood if you include the Starbucks inside the grocery stores.

Where I live in good old middle class Clairemont, they are opening up yet another new Starbucks down the street from the middle and high schools (the one featured in Fast Times at Ridgemont High), so I think they are targeting kids with allowances to buy frappacinos (in addition to the school staff/teachers). I just wonder who's going to lease all the former corner lots once occupied by gas stations, but now choice locations for Starbucks or Walgreens.

[Chris]

Starbucks' espresso shots actually improved a lot after that systemwide overhaul they did several months back. I rarely get a bad one now at any store.

[Sophie]

It is a known, objective fact that Starbucks makes some of the worst tasting coffee ever. I am more of a black tea drinker (yes I'm under 60 years old), and the few occasions I've had coffee from Starbucks, in need of a stronger caffeine fix, even I have been able to tell that they make horrendous-tasting coffee.

More Coffee Beans please.