Starbucks Closes Chiswick High Road Branch

Store near junction with Fishers Lane shutting this week

Starbucks have confirmed that they have permanently closed one of their five stores in Chiswick this week.

Staff had been telling customers that closure was planned and a Starbucks spokesperson told us when we asked about their plans, “We constantly review our store portfolio to ensure each of our stores contributes to a healthy business growth, and as part of that can confirm that our store at 280 Chiswick High Road is closing this Thursday (21st February). We would like to thank all of our customers for their loyalty over the years and let them know we have two stores close by - one on Turnham Green Terrace and one a few doors down at 376 Chiswick High Road.”

The store had originally been part of the Coffee Republic chain which sold some of its branches to Starbucks over a decade ago before going into administration.

The Seattle-based company is restructuring its UK operations and moving away from company-run stores to increase the number of franchises. It has been closing a number of unprofitable stores as well as transferring operations to franchise and licence partners. About a third of its just under one thousand stores in the UK are now company-run. In 2008 when they had 664 stores they were all company-run.

The firm has attracted criticism for its tax practices and last year its European operations paid an effective tax rate of under 4%. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has defended the low payments in this country by claiming it is hard to make money in the UK.

Last year the US business said that it would be closing 150 stores more than the 50 it would normally do in the course of a year. In the past Starbucks has been accused of saturating an area with its stores to clear out local completion before closing stores when the strategy has achieved its aim. The company’s share price has performed well and is currently close to an all-time high.

The closure of the Chiswick store reverses the previous expansion of the company, which has its UK headquarters in Chiswick, in the W4 area. In May of last year they took over the former Fat Face store on Turnham Green Terrace. Then towards the end of last year they announced a plan to open another cafe in Chiswick in Building 7 at Chiswick Business Park. This is their second cafe in the Park and will be part of the Starbucks Reserve brand, of which there are only a few globally, the main one being within their Seattle headquarters. The Reserve stores offer for a sale a rarer and higher-quality brand of Starbucks coffee as well as wines, beer and spirits. The current intention is for this space to be occupied by Starbucks for use primarily by their employees and employees of the wider business park.

February 22, 2019