SAN DIEGO — Anyone with a Starbucks stop in their daily routine will tell you, grabbing your order has gotten a lot more complicated lately.
People in San Diego County and beyond have reported going to their neighborhood café, only to discover they're closed or have reduced hours.
For example, a sign appeared outside the Starbucks located on Camino Del Sur and Paseo Del Sur in 4S Ranch last week, announcing the store would be closed seven days in a row. This week, it's closed again through Wednesday.
On Nextdoor, posts have been popping up regarding the same issue.
One man wrote:
“I'm assuming it's a major staffing issue, but I went to every Starbucks in PB today (except the one inside of Von's), and they are all temporarily closed, including the one in Bird Rock.”
On Monday, CBS 8 found a couple of locations closed as well. The store on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach had a sign alerting customers their store was closed. However, the drive-through was still open.
Meanwhile, the Starbucks on Genesee and Balboa was completely shut down. A sign on the door gave no indication as to when it would reopen.
Online, people have theorized it has to do with labor shortages, as well as an uptick in COVID-19 cases amongst employees, two issues impacting the service industry severely.
Starbucks recently rolled back plans to require workers to be vaccinated after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden Administration's mandate for large businesses.
As for these recent closures, a spokesperson for Starbucks said via a statement:
“As we have since the beginning of the pandemic, local leaders can, and do scale operations based on partner availability and local COVID-19 factors. When a store is experiencing a temporary staff shortage, we respond by reducing hours to be mindful that our partners aren’t overworked –prioritizing their health & well-being in our decision making. These decisions are made on a store-by-store and market-by-market basis, and our customers can check the Starbucks Locator on our website or app for their store’s current hours of operation.”
The spokesperson also provided CBS 8 a link with Starbucks COVID-19 policies.
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