Starbucks is Closing 400 Stores. Here’s What That Actually Means for Workers.

Some Starbucks locations are closing, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Photo: Unsplash

Look, I’m not gonna lie to you. The headlines about Starbucks are rough. 400 stores closing. 900 corporate workers laid off. A billion dollar restructuring. Sounds like the apocalypse if you just read the clickbait.

But here’s the thing. I actually talked to people who work there. And the reality is… complicated. Not great, but not the disaster the internet wants it to be.

CNBC reported on the full scope of it. CEO Brian Niccol announced the closures in late September as part of his “Back to Starbucks” plan. The stores getting shut down are ones where they “don’t see a path to financial performance” or can’t create the environment they want. Translation: stores that were already struggling.

The 900 layoffs hit corporate workers – marketing, HR, administrative roles. Not baristas. Not the people actually making your coffee. Thats an important distinction that keeps getting lost.

My buddy Mike’s daughter works at a Starbucks in Dearborn. Her store isn’t closing. She told him morale is actually… okay? Like, not great, but people are cautiously optimistic about some of the changes. Less focus on mobile orders means more actual human interaction. More time to make drinks right instead of rushing through a queue of complicated frappuccinos.

CNN noted that baristas at closing stores are supposed to get transferred to nearby locations where possible. Not ideal, but not abandoned either. Severance packages for those who can’t transfer.

The “Back to Starbucks” plan includes some things that might actually help workers. Bringing back ceramic mugs. Putting condiment bars back out. Letting baristas write on cups again. Sounds small, right? But those little things made Starbucks feel like a coffee shop instead of a fast food assembly line.

Now look, I’m not saying everything is fine. Losing your job sucks, period. Those 900 corporate workers and the baristas at closing stores are real people with real bills. And the CEO compensation is obscene – nobody needs $100 million for four months of work while telling everyone else to tighten their belts.

But this isn’t Starbucks collapsing. It’s a company trying to fix what was broken – six straight quarters of declining sales, stores that felt more like fast food joints than coffee shops, workers stretched too thin trying to handle mobile order chaos.

Whether Niccol’s plan works? Ask me in a year. But the baristas I’ve talked to aren’t panicking. Some of them are actually kind of hopeful that things might get better.

That’s worth something. Not everything, but something.