(Newswire.net – April 9 2013) Cincinnati, Oh — Caribou Coffee first opened its doors in 1990 and within 10 years became the second-largest operator of non-franchised coffeehouses in the United States, after the Starbucks Corporation.
Yesterday however came a surprising announcement that Caribou Coffee will close almost 80 locations and will be pulling most stores out of the Chicago Market. The closings start this Sunday and an estimated 1,000 people will lose their jobs.
They also announced places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. will all have Caribou Coffee removed. Retail locations in Iowa will remain open as well as retail locations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Western Wisconsin, Kansas, Denver and North Carolina.
“Over the past few months, we at Caribou have revisited our business strategy, including closely evaluating our performance by market to make decisions that best position us for long-term growth,” Caribou President Mike Tattersfield said in a statement. “While the decisions we’ve made have been difficult for our team in Minneapolis, as well as our team members across the country and our guests and fans everywhere, we are working to make this transition as seamless as possible for the Caribou community.”
Caribou Coffee announced earlier this year they took a private deal with a German investment company worth $340 million dollars. Some locations will remain open but will be rebranded to Peet’s Coffee & Tea.
This announcement comes just 2 weeks before the 4th Empower Network event that will take place in Chicago. Empower network is one of the largest viral blogging platforms online which offer world class marketing, business and life training videos.
Many of its members have stated they loved Caribou Coffee and will miss sipping on a nice hot cup of coffee while hanging out late at night or earlier in the morning for breakfast.
Chicago attracts over 43 million visitors annually and if you combine that with a study done in 2012 that 54% of the nation drinks coffee on a daily basis it’s not hard to see why they are the number one city in the U.S. for coffee consumption.