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Starbucks pulls the plug on Teavana — including 3 stores in NYC
Coffee giant to shutter 379 shops within a year
Tea time’s over for Starbucks Coffee’s three Teavana stores in New York City.
The Seattle-based coffee giant announced it would shutter all of its 379 Teavana stores by the spring of 2018. In New York, that includes locations at 1291 Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side, 2261 Broadway on the Upper West Side and 9015 Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst, Queens, the Commercial Observer reported.
The stores had been “strategically underperforming,” Starbucks’ president and CEO Kevin Johnson said during an earnings call Thursday.
Starbucks bought the tea company for $620 million in 2012, but despite “creative merchandising and new store designs, the underperformance was likely to continue,” the company said in a third-quarter earnings report. In January, Starbucks said it planned to convert its three New York City Teavana locations into Starbucks stores.
Earlier this month, Princi bakery, which is owned by Starbucks, signed an 18,000-square-foot lease at LIVWRK and FirstMarket Capital’s 160 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.
Last year, Starbucks inked a deal for 20,000 square feet at 61 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District. The outpost will house an upscale roastery, restaurant and café.
On Thursday, Starbucks said it shell out $1.3 billion to buy out its joint venture partners in its East China business. [CO] — E.B. Solomont