'San Francisco…Facing the Worst of It' Starbucks Stock (NASDAQ:SBUX) Notches Up as San Francisco Oddly Targeted in Closures

Business Insider

21 hours ago

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Bart gets an earring, and the mall in which he gets it ultimately becomes nothing but Starbucks locations? That is a path coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX) seems eager to change, as it has been closing a lot of stores of late. We just heard yesterday about plans to stop building a community store, and several other stores have followed suit. A recent report suggests that one place hit unusually hard by Starbucks closures is San Francisco. The news did not really shock investors, though, as they gave shares a fractional boost in Wednesday afternoon's trading.
Elevate Your Investing Strategy:
Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence.
Reports describe how, in San Francisco, the Starbucks at 295 California Street shut down. This location had been in place for around two decades, reports noted, and was considered a 'fixture' of the San Francisco Financial District. But given that San Francisco has seen a lot of office space go empty of late, that may have sent the demand for carry-out coffee into open decline as well.
Though another report suggests that the news may not be so dire. Starbucks itself noted that the California Street closure '…coincided with the natural end of the lease.' Further, Starbucks employees at that location were offered transfers to other stores in the area, so at least there were no layoffs as the result of that location's closure. Yet oddly enough, reports note that there have been four Starbucks locations in San Francisco that were closed just in 2025. Stretch the time scale back to November 2024, and the number rises to six.
The Starbucks Job
Whether you got the idea from the 2004 movie The Ladykillers, from the 1969 episode of Gomer Pyle, USMC 'Dynamite Diner,' or from somewhere else altogether, you understand the idea of using a nearby location as cover to tunnel into a second location to rob it. Apparently, someone in Kingston, Washington thought this was an excellent idea to put into practice in real life…but targeted a Starbucks location to do it.
Kitsap County Sheriff's deputies discovered a 'huge hole burrowed through the wall of the Starbucks,' which originated from a vacant store next to the Starbucks location. What exactly the suspected thieves got from the robbery is unclear, but reports noted they '…went through cash drawers, cut computer cables, went through cabinets, and damaged a safe.'
Is Starbucks Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on SBUX stock based on 14 Buys, nine Holds and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 0.56% loss in its share price over the past year, the average SBUX price target of $100.61 per share implies 6.79% upside potential.