Ottawa·NewCoffee lovers in Ottawa expressed their surprise and disappointment Monday at the sudden closure of nine Starbucks locations across the city, part of the chain’s North America-wide restructuring.The global coffee chain has faced flagging sales amid a cost of living crisisCBC News · Posted: Sep 29, 2025 5:58 PM EDT | Last Updated: 26 minutes agoNine Starbucks locations in Ottawa have closed as part of a North American restructuring. (Anne-Charlotte Carignan/Radio-Canada)Coffee lovers in Ottawa expressed their surprise and disappointment Monday at the sudden closure of nine Starbucks locations across the city, part of the chain’s North America-wide restructuring.Jess Rose said she and her husband were “devastated” by the closure of their favourite location at 1050 Bank St., describing it as heartbreaking. “It’s not about Starbucks and the company, it’s about the people who work there,” she said Monday, referring to reports from employees that they had received just 48 hours’ notice before losing their jobs.The location in Old Ottawa South had only been open for about a year and was in a newly finished building owned by Preeminent Developments.There are other cafés nearby, but Rose said her neighbourhood Starbucks was special — and it opened early.”The only thing unfortunately about the coffee shops that are local around here — and we love to support local — is that they are not open early enough for a lot of people,” she explained.A sign outside a former Starbucks location in Ottawa breaks the bad news to customers. (Isabel Harder/CBC)Gaby Garcia also arrived to find the doors closed and the sign removed on Monday. She said she’ll miss visiting the café with kids she looks after before taking them to the Sunnyside branch of the Ottawa Public Library across the road. “It’s kind of sad,” she said. “Now what are we going to do?”Garcia said she hopes a Tim Hortons will take its place on the building’s ground floor.A sign in the window addressed to “our amazing customers” called the closure an “incredibly difficult decision.””We know this may be hard to hear — because this isn’t just any store, it’s your coffeehouse, a place woven into your daily routine, where memories were made, and where meaningful connections with our partners grew over the years,” it read.Starbucks announced the closures of underperforming locations on Thursday as part of a restructuring efforts in response to six consecutive quarters of declining U.S. sales. “During the review, 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, and these locations will be closed,” CEO Brian Niccol said in a statement. This notice greeted customers who arrived at the closed locations Monday looking for their caffeine fix. (Kimberly Molina/CBC)One per cent of all Starbucks stores in North America would close as part of the restructuring, Niccols said. The global chain will end the fiscal year with 18,300 stores across North America. The coffee chain’s sales have been hurt by the rising cost of living, according to Dana Hyde, executive in residence at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management. “Inflationary pressures have depressed demand for more expensive specialty coffees — customers’ switching to Tim Hortons, for example — putting further downward pressure on Starbucks sales,” she said in an email. “In addition, US tariffs on key coffee-growing nations combined with a shortage of coffee beans have increased Starbucks’ raw materials costs.”The nine Ottawa locations that have closed stretch from Gateway Plaza in Kanata to Trinity Crossing Mall in Orléans. They are: Bank & Aylmer in Old Ottawa South (1050 Bank St.). St. Laurent Shopping Centre (1200 St. Laurent Blvd.). Bank & McLeod in Centretown (455 Bank St.). Trinity Crossing Mall in Orléans (4240 Innes Rd.). Elmvale Acres (1910 St. Laurent Blvd.). Tunney’s Pasture (1620 Scott St.). W. Hunt Club (330 W. Hunt Club Rd.). W. Hunt Club Petro Canada (690 W. Hunt Club Rd.). Gateway Plaza in Kanata (4055 Carling Ave.). With Files from CBC’s Kimberly Molina, Isabel Harder, Jayden Dill and Jenna Benchetri
9 Starbucks cafés close in Ottawa as part of North American restructuring
