Starbucks Closes Five Seattle Stores, Union Members Cry Foul

Starbucks announced plans to close five Seattle cafes in early April, four of them unionized, escalating a labor dispute that has already produced nationwide strikes, an NLRB filing, and a direct broadside at CEO Brian Niccol from the union representing the affected baristas.

The locations set to close include stores on Madison Street, University Way NE, Seattle Center, and at Seattle Children's Hospital. A fifth non-union location in downtown Seattle will also shut. Starbucks Workers United filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board on March 3, arguing the company is targeting stores based on their union status. Starbucks pushed back through a spokesperson, saying locations were selected based on financial performance and customer service and that union status was "not a factor in the decision-making process."

The union was blunt. "If you think you can crush a movement by closing a building, you're wrong," Starbucks Workers United said in a statement. The closures arrived as talks between the company and Workers United, representing over 12,000 baristas, had already stalled after beginning last April.

The five planned Seattle closures are part of a far larger retrenchment. Starbucks shut roughly 400 stores across the U.S. last year, including 59 unionized locations, and has closed more than 30 outlets in Washington state alone over the same period. The company's flagship unionized Seattle location, a large cafe with an in-house roastery, shuttered in September 2025. CEO Niccol, who took the role in September 2024, is overseeing a restructuring projected to cost $1 billion, with North American store count expected to drop by roughly 1% and job cuts rippling through support teams.

The union directed pointed criticism at Niccol personally, accusing him of cutting stores and jobs while using the company jet, and accused Starbucks of "failing its hometown." That frustration extends beyond store closures. Starbucks cut 1,100 corporate jobs in 2025, more than 600 of them in Washington state, and announced plans to relocate dozens of Seattle-based jobs to a new corporate office in Nashville, while keeping its headquarters in Seattle.

The labor conflict stretches well beyond the city limits. Starting November 13, baristas in more than 40 cities went on strike, timing the action to disrupt Starbucks' "red cup" holiday promotion, the company's most profitable seasonal window. Seattle mayor-elect Katie Wilson joined hundreds of supporters at a rally outside the shuttered Reserve Roastery that day. The union deployed what it called a guerilla strike strategy, rotating work stoppages across different stores to stretch limited strike funds while sustaining pressure over three weeks. In December, union members walked off jobs in multiple U.S. cities during a multi-day strike during peak holiday season.

At the University Way NE location slated for closure, barista Emma Cox helped lead pickets. She said coworkers were "fed up by the low wages and poor conditions at work." On the picket line in Chicago, where Starbucks also closed a unionized Ridge Avenue store, Diego Franco traveled from a Des Plaines location to join the action. "We're here to remind the company that it's the workers who actually bring the people into the stores," Franco said.

The NLRB charge filed March 3 is the union's formal legal escalation, and with bargaining sessions stalled and four more Seattle stores set to go dark, the dispute between Niccol's restructuring agenda and an organized workforce shows no signs of resolution.