Workers putting the final touches on a 2010 overhaul of the E Olive Way Starbucks (Image: CHS)
The 23rd and Jackson Starbucks is closing. Capitol Hill’s Gaybucks is also a goner.
Playing hardball on issues around safety at its stores, Starbucks on Monday announced plans to close 16 shops where it says crime is an issue — including five in its home city of Seattle.
The closures will include two of its most prominent neighborhood shops in central Seattle at 1600 E Olive way on Capitol Hill and at 23rd and Jackson in the Central District.
The Seattle Times was first to report the plan as part of what the company says is concern about the safety of its employees. “The stores were chosen based on their level of crime and whether attempts to lower those the crime rates were successful,” the Seattle Times reports.
A company spokesperson confirmed the closures with CHS, saying the decision was guided by “local leaders” at its stores and citing the company’s many efforts to support services for homelessness and substance abuse in Seattle — “Despite all of that, we couldn’t guarantee a safe and welcoming environment,” the spokesperson said.
Seattle’s Five Starbucks Closures:
- 1600 E Olive Way
- 2300 S Jackson
- 400 Pine/Westlake
- 6417 Roosevelt Way NE
- 505 5th Ave S/Union Station
The shops will close July 31st.
The move echoes with another corporate closure decision last year as Kroger opted to axe two Seattle stores including the 15th Ave E QFC in a tiff with the city council over COVID-19 hazard pay requirements.
But the Starbucks spokesperson shied away from politics and any issues around City Hall leadership, emphasizing that the specific decisions to close the stores came down to feedback from local managers who “know the neighborhoods and businesses best.”
When asked what message the closures of the E Olive Way or Central District cafe sends to Starbucks customers or employees who live in the areas, the spokesperson said Starbucks remains committed to the city.
“We’re fortunate that there are over 100 stores in Seattle that will remain open,” the spokesperson said.
The changes come as part of a “reinvention” of the chain as Howard Schultz has returned to the company as CEO on an interim basis after Starbucks struggled with the challenges of the pandemic and a growing unionization effort among its ranks. A “message” from Schultz about the need to overhaul the company’s shops and working conditions included a promise of “programs and initiatives to deliver upon this set of Bold Moves in the weeks ahead.”
The message did not include details of the closures which were provided separately to outlets including CHS.
Neither the E Olive Way or the Jackson location crews have unionized but Capitol Hill has been a center of activity for unionization efforts for the chain here in Seattle. The national effort to unionize Starbucks rooted in Kshama Sawant’s District 3 and on Capitol Hill poured into the neighborhood’s Cal Anderson Park and onto Broadway in June with a rally and march to support workers.
CORRECTION 7/12/2022: The E Olive Way location voted to approve representation unanimously 8-0 in June on a petition that was submitted to the National Labor Relations Board in March. The location is one of 11 in Seattle where workers have either filed or approved union representation, according to Perfectunion.us. The Jackson location does not appear to have filed. Workers at the Union Station location also being planned for closure, approved union representation in May.
Capitol Hill’s Starbucks Roastery and Denny and Broadway store workers are now represented by Starbucks Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, and will collectively bargain over pay and working conditions.
23rd and Jackson
At 23rd and Jackson, the shutdown will bring to a close a location that was at one time one of the company’s proudest achievements.
That cafe was integral in one expansion path for Starbucks as it teamed with investors like NBA great Magic Johnson on a string of “inner-city stores” following the successful opening of the Starbucks cafe at the busy Central District intersection. It has been the host for the company’s past dabbling in City of Seattle issues. In 2015, Schultz and then SPD Chief Kathleen O’Toole hosted a forum on racism and policing at the Central District cafe. Today, it stands across the street from a massive redevelopment in the neighborhood from Vulcan Real Estate. Vulcan also owns the property and lot the 23rd and Jackson Starbucks has called home. Gun violence and safety issues have continued. Earlier this year, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed blaming Vulcan Real Estate and its major tenants including Starbucks and Walgreens for the unsolved June 2021 shooting death of a 21-year-old man in the shopping center parking lot.
Capitol Hill’s E Olive Way Starbucks, meanwhile, is affectionately known as the Gaybucks and weathered both the 2020 protests and the pandemic. CHS marked its reopening after months of closure in November 2020. The cafe bore the brunt of vandalism during ongoing protests in the neighborhood with several incidents of broken glass and damage from fireworks. Starting with the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer, protesters said the chain was being targeted over its support of the Seattle Police Foundation.
E Olive Way is much changed in recent years, first with a burst of redevelopment creating new housing and retail spaces where B&O used to stand, then with a modern day land rush. Pot entrepreneur Ian Eisenberg paid more than $2 million for a two-story, 1967-era property in the fall of 2017 as a land rush for E Olive Way properties played out after shifting laws and policies opened up the street to I-502 pot development. Uncle Ike’s “Capitol Hill West” shop opened in 2020 in the overhauled office building next to The Crescent. Meanwhile, The Reef opened just up E Olive Way in the former Amante Pizza location in August 2018. The Reef’s new home made the old pizza shop nearly unrecognizable after a redesign of the interior by architects Olson Kundig. Its presence has since spread across the street where the pot shop has stepped up to sponsor a clean-up and upgrades to the Arcade Plaza pavement park.
The curving street has also become a popular nightlife hangout with new additions like Gold Bar ready to join the mix. Just uphill, Eaglemount is planning a new taproom with hopes of attracting even a fraction of the patrons who line up for dessert at the neighboring Hot Cakes.
A new wave of redevelopment is coming. Plans filed this spring show what will come next for the 1600 block of E Olive Way across from the Starbucks building: a new seven-story mixed use development that will spread across three parcels off the curving street to make space for around 160 new apartment units above street level commercial spaces for shops or restaurants and a two-level underground parking garage. Closer to Broadway, plans for a new eight-story mixed use project are being readied for the All Season Cleaners property.
At the base where E Olive Way curves into Bellevue Ave, City Market and its neighboring laundromat Crystal Clean are slated to be torn down to make way for an eight-story, mass timber, mixed-use apartment building at the site. Development firm Barrientos Ryan said the return of City Market on the ground floor of the new building is in the plans. It is unlikely there will space for a new laundromat in the project.
The street is definitely changing. Longtimer Glo’s is preparing for a move later this year that will put the much-loved diner in a new home above Capitol Hill Station. In the meantime, it sits idled by a damaging fire. And Crystal Clean decided to throw in the towel, like Starbucks, citing issues of crime and cost.
What will happen next to the prime E Olive Way location Starbucks is leaving behind will be determined by the fates of capitalism and real estate but the building and surface parking lot have a chain history that runs deep. At one time home to Capitol Hill original the Pied Piper, the space later was transformed into a Red Robin, then the Boston Market chain called the spot home before Starbucks moved in.
Soon, it will be available again.
UPDATE 7/13/2022: Vulcan Real Estate, the property owner of the 23rd and Jackson location, has not responded to CHS’s inquiry about the planned closure and the lease status of the Central District Starbucks. Meanwhile, a lawyer representing the Hiram family that has held the E Olive Way property for decades also has not responded to CHS.
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
All of these locations were very popular SBUX stores before pandemic, and before the assaults by “people experiencing homelessness and mental health crisis” on our formerly nice urban dense, walkability score 96 neighborhoods that began to flourish during pandemic, and during our former Council’s slack attitude towards law enforcement. Even now that corner is a hotbed of homeless camper activity, despite local residents’ attempts to keep it out of the P-Patch at 200 Summit Ave E across the street. I wonder if that Olive Way location will be a teardown and development location now – it could be an 8 story building. Which in turn would be a candidate to be bought by the City, turned over to LIHI “management,” and become another crime and EMT rescue hot-spot, like LIHI property at 420 Boylston Ave E up the street became once the City bought it. Remember, homelessness is an affordability issue only, it has nothing to do with drug addiction or crime. Just ask Marc Dones. Pay no attention to the near-nightly 911 calls to 420 Boylston Ave E.
While I agree that the 23rd and Jackson Parking Lot is absurdly sketchy, I also think this is probably part of Starbucks’ anti-union efforts. Has Starbucks Worker United stated whether they were targeting either store for unionization efforts?
The 23rd and Jackson one seems particularly odd considering that it was usually fairly active and the closest nearby Starbucks are 17th and Cherry and on Lakeside. The Union Station one next to the light rail also seems like an odd location to close.
Ah well. I hope the nearby Broadcast Coffee amps up their service, because they always have a gigantic line indoors.
It’s unlikely. I work for the ‘bux and olive way has been by far one of the most successful post covid stores in terms of sales
I heard the high turnover and security costs are what did it.
It’s really shocking though
yeah they got big new buildings filling with people around that store. Maybe the land is worth enough to vacate a few years while the last low corner is redeveloped as things happen.
no girl, it’s union busting. the turnover was due entirely to that fact. trust.
Yes! It’s about the union! I live at 23rd & Jackson, where Starbucks is frequently in the background of my photos of local weather. I’m feeble and retired and feel perfectly safe here. Def the Union, I suspect with a heavy sprinkle of racism on the top. If Starbucks closes, I also suspect that we’ll get Vulcan’s Phase II mixed used complex on that corner quicker. Let ’em close, people will just go to Amazon Fresh, where our local workers have started going for lunch.
Yes! I feel perfectly safe, so it ABSOLUTELY must be due to unions and racism. Thanks for clearing things up, Denise.
The 23rd and Jackson store was already closed today with a sign stating “This Store is Closed,” though there were a lot of workers there.
That area of Capitol Hill has become exceedingly sketchy in recent months, probably because of the rows of homeless tents a few blocks away on E Denny, as well as drug addicts openly shooting up at the vape stores on the corner.
Other neighborhoods of Seattle like Ballard, Fremont, Queen Anne, Green Lake have been thriving in recent months, but Capitol Hill has felt stagnant since the pandemic. Between the drug vagrants and the Sawant-voting anarcho-socialists, Capitol Hill has lost its fun and cool vibe. It’s frankly just gross now.
Good hopefully rent will finally go down
Where are drug addicts openly shooting up in vape(?) stores? then there are drug vagrants too I guess. hmmm drugs include caffeine which is what concerns me. These crazy over caffeinated tech bros are ruining some vibes.
I have lived in this “sketchy” neighborhood for 20 years and the only thing sketchy about it are folks like you who consistently criminalize and demean people who are struggling. WE ARE ALL ADDICTS! You don’t think you are, then I challenge you to stop drinking coffee, alcohol or get off social media for 30 days and let me know how you feel. And when you’re done with that why don’t you and all your Ferengi friends move to fucking bellevue and give us back our gross, shitty hill.
Not so simple. Fentanyl produces majorly severe outcomes for people far beyond the dangers of even alcohol (one of the worst addictions to plague a person). You can’t incorporate active fentanyl addicts into your community. This is impossible & the fact that some people encourage fentanyl addicts to live in filthy encampments and compare their lives and community impact to those who drink too many lattes and scroll too much internet is insane & also inhumane and unjust. We see basically the walking dead all around us because of this new plague on humanity.
Not everyone living in tents is a drug addict and those that are struggling with addiction are just as worthy of aid and compassion as anyone else who deals with the same issues. Thinking that you are somehow better than folks who are struggling to survive is inhumane and unjust and everything that is wrong with our society.
There is a majority drug problem with the encampments, majority of the residents. I don’t think I’m better than any of them—that’s why I find it infuriating and unconscionable that our fellow humans are left to live like that. It’s not okay for them, the encampment related crime is one thing, the fires another, the viral breeding ground encouraging illness and contagion…this is an inhumane way for people to live. End of.
I walk past encampments near here fairly often. The majority of people in them has a drug habit, likely fent / blue pills. So do many of the people living at LIHI managed property near here. As well as those passed out on sidewalks next to Patent523. This whole neighborhood has a fent addiction problem. To say otherwise is to ignore a mountain of easily observed evidence.
We are all addicts. But my addictions don’t require that I steal other peoples property, camp on their yards without their permission, or leave my body lying around in public. It’s strange and weird that their addiction that you’re justifying does.
“The fates of capitalism”? And your alternative is the brilliance of central planning?
far too many Believe in the church of central planning.
I know unionizing does the trick, but curious as to what kind of crime gets a Starbucks to close down? Asking for a friend 😉, and also for all the Sonics fans, and anyone whose favorite small coffee shop was put out of business by the large corporation intentionally opening shops all around them.
The 64th and Roosevelt store stands out as just weird on this list. I think they should change the title of the store closings from “crime problems” to “homelessness problems”.
That neighborhood is very upscale (Whole foods anyone?) and pretty crime free. It is however close to Ravenna Park and also the I5 overpass.
Sheesh. I would never drink their coffee given a choice anyhow.
I can only think it was the high school rush they got.
This spring a guy was murdered behind Riteaid, Glo’s burned and the laundry mat and Gaybucks closed due to crime. What is going on on Olive? I am sure it has nothing to do with the “marginalized and vulnerable”open air drug market. Seattle needs to get its sh*t together and take the keys to the city back from the drug vagrants.
The news about 23rd and Jackson is sad and surprising, as is Vulcan’s difficulty with securing that lot. Still customers of the other businesses in the area will surely miss it. I admit to not having met anyone there since the pandemic, but it was main spot for meetings and for nearby Garfield students and employees, and at one time, it was one of the busiest if not the busiest SB in Seattle. Maybe a new shop could open there or in one of the storefronts across the street.
The CD was a coffee shop dessert before SB arrived, rather the opposite of the story of the big corporation taking over and eliminating the small businesses. In this case, a successful and popular SB gave many others the courage to set up coffee shops in the area. Almost immediately new local shops opened.
I would like to thank all the users, pushers, vandals, etc. for their efforts in ridding the neighborhood of this plague of brown water dens.
I see an irony in that I’ve never had a single problem with the socially unacceptable addicts at the Olive Way location but have been nearly run over several times by the socially acceptable addicts leaving the parking lot.
That’s really sad. We’ve lost our way as a city.
I loved both of these stores so much back in the day, they truly felt like the neighborhood meet up spots, loved to sit and see and be seen. Took my parents to the Gaybucks when I was 22 and just out and wanted to show off gay life in the city. Then we went to B&O, of course.
Dunkin is not allowed in seattle
I worked at the olive way location for three years. I left Starbucks earlier this year. They were not lying. We found three different people , dead, in our restrooms in one week. This was becoming a regular occurrence. They’d overdose in the restrooms. It wasn’t until much later on the day that we would find out. Plus, don’t get me started on the number of times we were assaulted by the local residents of the encampments. Glad they closed. Cap Hill is an extremely dangerous and violent neighborhood. I know of several other businesses in the area that will soon be announcing closures.
Wow- thank you for this first hand perspective. That is absolutely horrific for all parties involved.
Wow. This…is absolutely jaw-dropping and awful. I’m baffled why no news media covered this, considering all the national attention given to the two SB non-customers denied restroom access in Philadelphia four years ago.
Hi SbuxBarista: I just wanted to let you know I found your comment so informative, and distressing, that I posted it verbatim in the comments section of a Washington Post article on these closures. Judging by replies and likes, it drew a fair amount of interest.
I don’t doubt your comment for a second. I remember back in the 1990’s Twice Sold Tales Bookstore had a sign posted on its restroom door telling the junkies to take their “activities” elsewhere; they ended up closing the restroom to all customers due to “the junkies going in there and shooting up.” This was at its old location, pre-tunnel, location.
I live in Oregon, but I’ve always loved Cap Hill as a great place to visit, and a place I once hoped to live. I’m really sorry to hear so much about its problems with gentrification, drugs, crime, and violence.
Capital Hill was a great neighborhood; I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will be once again.
nobody has died in Gaybucks within the last three years.
I saw someone posting this exact same story on reddit recently… You’re an actual Gaybucks employee, yeah? The comment on reddit was also disputed by actual employees, I wonder why someone keeps coming on these threads lying about specifically 3 overdoses… Do you think this person actually worked there or are they someone from sbux corporate PR, maybe? Does anyone know of a way to definitively verify that this did or didn’t happen? In any case that’s a super fucked up thing to make up a story about
What a damn shame! This is a direct result of our lefty City Council and its tolerance/looktheother way approach to homelessness and associated crime. The addition of Sarah Nelson to the Council will help, as is the mayoralty of Bruce Harrell, but I’m not optimistic that these things will make a big difference. Seattle is just too strong a magnet for those who don’t want to be bothered with obeying the law.
I’ll miss the 23rd and Jackson Starbucks – it was a great community spot with a lively vibe and almost always a line at the counter.
Why only 5? This isn’t about safety. They’re fighting against unionization.
Maybe it’s about both? Paying for security guards, the extra insurance and liability to protect their employees, not to mention the other random trash and vandalism issues that come with roaming fentanyl zombies and the occasional black bloc protests all adds up. And yes, maybe SB corporate looked at the bottom line and decided unionization on top of all that would be an added cost that just didn’t make it worth it. It’s about time we all looked in the mirror and realized our voting habits and virtue signaling did this and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I don’t think so. If Capitol Hill is as chaotic as you describe, then the entire area will have no restaurant, cafe, or any other business, and nobody would want to live here. But the rental and home prices say otherwise.
Well it does seem the troublemakers in Capitol Hill specifically target Starbucks over other places.
You are spot on no one important
And you know this, how? Businesses rather like to make a profit, you know, to stay in business. But when part of your business doesn’t make a profit, in fact costs you money, you change your ways. Like by closing a location. But if you still want to rant about how the mighty Starbucks Corporation wants to squash the little people, nothing I can say will convince you otherwise.
Ok so fun fact: only TWO locations in Seattle net the company any profit– the first store within Pike Place Market, and the store on 1st and Pike outside the market. Every other store in the city is there entirely for brand presence. Nothing else. Take it from a longtime employee and shut up.
Yes it was a great one, that it had diverse clientele is an understatement. It was a go-to spot for WMS students. Sadly it felt on its last legs once indoor seating was removed.
Ummm, do you read any other posts, or just push your presumptuous agenda? BTW, Starbucks has said that all union members can remain as union members with the same benefits at other locations. I’m not an SBucks booster, but come on.
From an actual ‘SbuxBarista’ “I worked at the olive way location for three years. I left Starbucks earlier this year. They were not lying. We found three different people , dead, in our restrooms in one week. This was becoming a regular occurrence. They’d overdose in the restrooms. It wasn’t until much later on the day that we would find out. Plus, don’t get me started on the number of times we were assaulted by the local residents of the encampments. Glad they closed. Cap Hill is an extremely dangerous and violent neighborhood. I know of several other businesses in the area that will soon be announcing closures.”
Again, why isn’t Capitol Hill a ghost town then?
Relative to what it was and factoring in rampant population growth with new apartments being rented, it’s relatively quiet. Maybe you just moved here? Maybe, you don’t notice all of the closed and boarded up businesses?
As for the Union Station SBux employees, maybe they are correct. But, maybe they aren’t. Just because you work the front lines doesn’t mean that you know what motivates corporate or that you always pass sound judgement when it comes to injury and loss.
I’m not siding with one claim or the other but one has to be brain-dead to think crime hasn’t surged in these parts, that police enforcement of basic order hasn’t all-but disappeared, vandalism and filth isn’t through the roof and that folks spend just as much time in many of the commercial areas as they used to. Simply put: the vibe is not nearly as bright, pleasant, safe and fun as it used to be.
A place can be neither a “ghost town” nor booming but somewhere in-between. You know this, yes? And, for a good stretch, Capitol Hill was totally rocking.
Sure you aren’t siding with one claim or the other. That’s right after you said you didn’t think Union Station employees know what they are talking about.
What’s wrong with somewhere in between ghost town and booming? I ain’t the one who find that as a problem. A big part of Capitol Hill has always been residential after all.
“That’s right after you said you didn’t think Union Station employees know what they are talking about.” I never said that. Reread my post. Your conflation and distortion of what I wrote only underscore how weak your arguments are and serve to discredit you. Be better.
Never said the exact words.
“Just because you work the front lines doesn’t mean that you know what motivates corporate or that you always pass sound judgement when it comes to injury and loss.”
There is no need for distortion when you chose to defend the decision of a company even after being shown it wasn’t for the reason it claimed. You will only see the other side when greedy corporate decisions affect you.
The Union Station employees said Starbucks is lying.
https://imgur.com/gallery/fk0V7kB
It’s funny because I remember when the Starbucks went in at 23rd and Jackson and people were like why because SB was bougie-ish but this was in the 1993 ish i think. The 14 has gone by there since then at least and I remember that corner because these dudes on the bus talking about Tupac who I liked. “Trying to make a dollar out of 15cents”. That grocery store was still across the street.
This is unfortunate, not that I’m a fan or even go to Starbucks and this is even hitting small business owners harder. The sad part is this is a symptom of misguided city policies that are enabling addiction, crime and human suffering on our streets and attracting more to come here because there are no repercussions. All of this comes with a cost to all of us for goods and services and quality of life.
Happy to see the 23rd & Jackson spot close. I live right by it and just hope all the businesses in that shopping center follow. Its a crime-ridden parking lot full of people up to no good and it needs to be shut down and replaced with something that would bring the neighborhood up, not pull it down (like the other social housing on Jackson).
Amazing reading through the comments and finding out that the city, apparently specifically Kshama Sawant, is enabling drug addicts who come and terrorize specifically this and only this neighborhood.
First of all, even presuming that were true… Do you have a solution? The cops are worthless. Witness the actual open air drug market at 12th and Jackson, which was destroying everything at that corner, that they could have parked a cruiser at on day one and dissipated. But no. Similarly they won’t even come for nonviolent calls. Property damage, forget about it – they’ll write it down and you never hear about it again. Great!
And don’t say more cops are what we need! All this was building up and happening well before the ‘defund the police’ movement came about and started pushing for restructuring (like having actual mental health experts for calls involving people losing their minds) and accountability – the cops have lied to us over and over about their tactics, supervision, everything! There are tons of cops, they’re paid extremely well, but whether there are 100 or 10,000 they just don’t do the job.
This is a crisis being faced by practically every major city, especially on the temperate west coast! Ask your friends in the Bay Area, in LA, all over the place we’ve got addiction and homelessness stressing resources to the max. Everywhere in the country! You think it’s just Capitol Hill? Jesus, look around. It might just be that the cause of this nationwide epidemic of poverty, addiction and homelessness isn’t your least favorite local politician.
You make some valid points and, certainly, public safety and how we do it has to change but Seattle has NEVER in this millennium had what most cities around the world would deem ‘tons of cops’. As this city has grown (and, with it, problems), even before the pandemic, the number of police per capita, has shrunk. Per capita, in fact, we have relatively few police and detectives, especially for a growing city and especially for a big one that attracts tens of millions of annual visits, in addition to those who live here. Boston is smaller than Seattle and has 2x as many police. Before you spout what you clearly don’t know, learn the facts, please. Left or Right, misinformation is stupid and wrong.
What exactly is YOUR solution, if you don’t see fault with your local politicians and the Police are “worthless”?
As a longtime member of this community and customer of Starbucks, I can confidently say this string of store closures is absolutely NOT due to safety concerns. It is 100% union busting. Plain and simple. Everything Starbucks Corporate has said about this is a complete and blatant LIE. This is not up for discussion.
The company is engaging in a massive, nationwide scorched-earth campaign to punish anyone and everyone in the company who has or is interested in unionizing, and *everyone* on staff at the Olive Way location can attest to this being the case. Incidents did occur quite a bit because it’s Capitol Hill, but it is nowhere near as dangerous as they claim, and far less dangerous than the Broadway and Denny location four blocks up the road.
Because the company treats a tyrannical octogenarian billionaire as a religious prophet, they would rather destroy their entire company and tank their global reputation than give their workers the proper protection, pay, and representation that they deserve. It’s nothing short of reprehensible, shameful, and disgusting.
Boycott Starbucks. Unionize everything.