Starbucks (SBUX) is the latest company to rethink its presence in San Francisco.

Effective Oct. 22, the coffee giant plans to close seven stores in San Francisco. Following these closures, there will be 52 remaining Starbucks locations in the city.

Starbucks did not disclose the reason for the closures. In a letter to employees, Jessica Borton, the Northern California regional vice president, stated: “There are several factors Starbucks considers when tasked with the tough decision of closing a store, but it is all part of ensuring a healthy store portfolio.”

Starbucks isn’t the only consumer-facing giant to take a second look at its San Francisco portfolio this year.

Other companies that recently closed locations in San Francisco include Amazon (AMZN), which closed a Whole Foods Market just 13 months after opening it earlier this year and all four Amazon Go Stores in March; Office Depot (ODP), which closed a store in April; and Anthropologie (URBN), which left Union Square after two decades in May.

Gap (GPS) also shuttered Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Athleta stores this year, while Nordstrom (JWN) closed its flagship store in August, and Saks Off 5th shut its doors this fall.

The Starbucks stores being added to this list are located on Mission and Main, Geary and Taylor, 425 Battery, 398 Market, 4th and Market, 555 California, and Bush and Van Ness. It’s worth noting that none of the stores set to close are unionized and employees at the stores will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other locations.

San Francisco sluggish in returning to offices

What’s behind the exodus? Hybrid and fully remote companies may be partly to blame.

“A big component for sure is that people are remote working and not coming into those offices as much,” John Zolidis, president of Quo Vadis Capital, told Yahoo Finance. “That’s got to be one of the driving forces — just less traffic from office workers.”

A customer leaves a Starbucks coffee shop in San Francisco, California, on Sept. 13, 2018. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

Per foot traffic analytics platform Placer.ai, San Francisco has the lowest number of visits to offices of any major US city. In August 2023, office visits were down 52.7% compared to August 2019, before the pandemic disrupted workplaces.

San Francisco is “by far the slowest to come back,” Ethan Chernofsky, senior vice president of marketing at Placer.ai, told Yahoo Finance. “When you think about what that means for retail more broadly … lots of people work there and then shop there and eat there, so that’s obviously going to have an impact. … Then, even though people who are coming back to the office [are] not doing so five days a week.”

Migration patterns — such as people moving out of the city — are a factor too, Chernofsky said, affecting cities across the US as well as San Francisco. And if retailers leave a city, it can lead to fewer visits to that area as well, causing companies to further reconsider their real estate portfolios.

“We see significant headroom for new store growth in underpenetrated areas in the US, including smaller cities, as well as new formats in larger metros,” Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan said on a call with investors following its Q3 earnings results.

However, the tide may be turning for San Francisco, with the artificial intelligence boom acting as a bright spot for activity. Just as the tech industry was the first to move to remote work during the pandemic, it may be a leader in bringing workers back to offices.

“San Francisco and the Bay Area in general is really a market that’s led by the tech industry,” Colin Yasukochi, executive director at CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, told Yahoo Finance. “Over the last six months, … they’re starting to see growth perk up in the tech industry. Artificial intelligence is one of those particular areas where the companies are actually looking to expand — they’re looking to upgrade the [office] space that they currently have to provide a better experience for their employees.”

Pedestrians and vehicles are visible at the base of the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, California, on May 5, 2022. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

A ‘difficult operating environment’

Crime and safety may also be playing a role.

On Sept. 26, Target (TGT) announced plans to close nine stores at the end of October, including three in the San Francisco and Oakland area. Target said crime and retail theft were the reasons behind the decision to close stores.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the company said in a statement.

According to crime data on the city’s website, theft has been the top issue, followed by burglary. That has affected not only if companies open retail space in the city but also where they choose to expand.

“On-the-ground type of issues have probably impacted where companies are willing to be located in terms of their office space,” Yasukochi said, “which is why we’ve seen a greater concentration of companies looking for space in the central business district and less so in the South of Market or mid-market areas.”

For Starbucks, though, it’s a bit harder to understand if crime truly was a factor. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on whether safety played a part in the decision in particular.

“There’s not large quantities of merchandise to steal and resell,” Zolidis said about Starbucks stores, though he added: “It’s just a difficult operating environment from an employee safety perspective.”

Another factor affecting how companies position themselves in the Golden State could be the approach of a minimum wage law that goes into effect on April 1. The law, which raises starting pay for fast food workers to $20 an hour, is one to watch, Zolidis said.

But, he added, “if that were a deciding factor [for Starbucks], it wouldn’t be seven stores in San Francisco [but] a much broader group of stores.”

Meanwhile, San Francisco Mayor London Breed remains optimistic about the city’s future, despite its challenges.

“People still want to be here,” Breed told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview at Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference. “They’re starting their companies, their businesses here.”

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Brooke DiPalma is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.

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The Starbucks restaurant at 4025 Tilghman Street in Allentown is closed for renovations.

A sign on the front door tells customers, “Sorry, we missed you. This store is temporarily closed while we make changes to better serve you.”

There are two permits in the window, one for plumbing, one for electrical work. The website for that store is also not in operation.

The sign points customers to use the Starbucks app and includes other nearby locations, including Hamilton Crossings, the South Mall, Target at Hamilton Crossings and Giant in Trexlertown.

Starbucks officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but a posting on Yelp says the store is scheduled to reopen Oct. 10.

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Hold onto your gift cards, as the chain-store unionization movement in SF just got a shot from the Starbucks at 18th and Castro Streets, which voted to unionize in results confirmed Tuesday afternoon.

We learned to live without the Castro Starbucks, nicknamed “Bearbucks,” when it closed between last Christmas and this past April over plumbing issues. But you may want to save your Starbucks gift cards to use at that particular Starbucks at 4094 18th Street (at Castro Street), because something big has been brewing there. Just three months after two Starbucks locations in Santa Cruz became the first unionized Starbucks shops in California, SFGate reports that the Castro Starbucks has also voted to unionize.

If certified, it will be the first unionized Starbucks in San Francisco.

“We’re very proud of the results today,” James Kreiss, an employee at the Castro Starbucks. “We hope this win encourages our San Francisco sister stores to seek a union too. Staff and customers have gone through the ringer this past year with inconsistent staffing and store availability — we appreciate the support our community has shown us and the continued support as we begin the long process of negotiations with Starbucks.”

The vote was reportedly 7-2 in favor of unionizing, with 15 eligible voters, only nine of whom cast ballots, by SFGate.

The Castro District’s supervisor, Rafael Mandelman, said in a statement on Twitter, “Many congratulations to the Castro Starbucks employees on their historic vote to become San Francisco’s first unionized Starbucks store. In an era of growing income inequality, successful efforts to organize low- wage private sector workers remind us that there is still power in a union and San Francisco is still a union town.”

Many congratulations to the Castro Starbucks employees. In an era of growing income inequality, successful efforts to organize low wage private sector workers remind us that there is still power in a union and San Francisco is still a union town. Harvey would be proud. https://t.co/fWJVZxKMHG

— Rafael Mandelman (@RafaelMandelman) August 16, 2022

Starbucks has five days to challenge the vote, and if they do not, the result is automatically certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Supervisor Dean Preston, who authored a Board of Supervisors resolution in support of the effort, was obviously pleased. “It takes tremendous courage and determination to form a union, especially in a climate where too often big corporations engage in blatant union busting activity,” Preston told SFGate. “I’m proud of Starbucks employees here and across the country who are unionizing their workplaces.”

While the company has not commented on this outcome, Starbucks is obviously steamed over these unionization efforts. The chain is asking for a halt to mail-in balloting in these votes, alleging improper conduct by the NLRB. (It’s unclear if mail ballots were used in this election.) Oh, and those Santa Cruz Starbucks that unionized in May? Employees at one of them have already gone on strike.

Related: Employees at Two Santa Cruz Starbucks Locations Have Voted To Unionize [SFist]

Image: Don O. via Yelp

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On Tuesday afternoon, with the National Labor Relations Board tallying the votes, workers at the Castro Starbucks (4098 18th St.) voted 7-2 in favor of forming a union (there were 15 eligible voters; 9 cast ballots). The Castro store join hundreds of other Starbucks unions at locations around the country that have taken similar steps this year.

“We’re very proud of the results today,” said James Kreiss, a worker at the Castro location. “We hope this win encourages our San Francisco sister stores to seek a union too. Staff and customers have gone through the ringer this past year with inconsistent staffing and store availability — we appreciate the support our community has shown us and the continued support as we begin the long process of negotiations with Starbucks.”

The Castro Starbucks, affectionately known as Bearbucks, was closed for about four months, from mid-December until April 18. A Starbucks spokesperson categorized the closure to Hoodline as a “facilities issue,” declining to comment further. Multiple workers at the Castro location tell SFGATE the store dealt for years with a plumbing issue — specifically, a rotten sewage smell — that they believe caused the shutdown and repairs. (Starbucks did not respond to a request for comment.)

Public records confirm a 2019 complaint about a “sewage smell,” though there aren’t more recent complaints on file. Permits show that multiple sinks were replaced earlier in 2022 and a “final plumbing inspection” took place March 1.

Workers at the Castro location discussed the possibility of unionizing ever since the first Starbucks union was established in Buffalo in early December of 2021, but those conversations didn’t pick up in earnest until early May of 2022, when their store was fully open again, Kreiss said. During the four-month closure, Castro workers had their hours drop off, sometimes dramatically, as they searched for other Bay Area locations where they could pick up temporary shifts. That, multiple workers said, is one of many reasons they wanted to proceed with a vote to unionize.

Starbucks has five days to challenge the results of the vote. Otherwise, in one week, the results will be certified, according to the NLRB.

San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro, offered the following statement to SFGATE: “Many congratulations to the Castro Starbucks employees on their historic vote to become San Francisco’s first unionized Starbucks store. In an era of growing income inequality, successful efforts to organize low-wage private sector workers to remind us that there is still power in a union and San Francisco is still a union town.”

Supervisor Dean Preston, who recently authored a resolution in support of Starbucks’ workers right to organize, also sent a statement to SFGATE:

“It takes tremendous courage and determination to form a union, especially in a climate where too often big corporations engage in blatant union busting activity. I’m proud of Starbucks employees here and across the country who are unionizing their workplaces.”

The Bay Area may soon add another unionized Starbucks location: Workers at the Starbucks at 2224 Shattuck Ave. at Berkeley are scheduled to have their ballots counted by the NLRB next Monday, Aug. 22.

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UNION CITY (CBS SF) — The discovery of a hidden camera in a Starbucks bathroom in Union City led to the arrest of a registered sex offender on a series of charges, authorities said.

Union City police said Wednesday officers were called to investigate a camera inside a restroom at the Starbucks on the 32000 block of Dyer St. last month. Detectives identified the suspect as David Lista, 35, of Hayward who was convicted in 2008 of secretly videotaping girls at Mills High School, police said.

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Lista – a plumber by trade – was arrested on August 30th and during a search of his home, investigators found more evidence of additional crimes including other hidden restroom cameras and child porn.

READ MORE: Amid Falling COVID Cases, San Mateo County Health Officials Say Not Too Late To Get Vaccinated, Boosted

Lista was charged with illegal video taping, possession of child pornography, and possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

Lista may have illegally videotaped unsuspecting victims who contracted his services, according to police. Anyone who may have hired Lista for plumbing or any home repair was urged to contact Union City police.

MORE NEWS: UPDATE: Man Accused Of Stalking, Masturbating Outside Berkeley School Identified As District Employee

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