Yakima's first Starbucks closes

The first Starbucks that opened in Yakima is closing its doors today after more than 15 years.

The store at 2203 S. First St., next to TOP Food & Drug in Yakima, is one of more than 600 locations the Seattle-based chain is closing.

The closure of the Yakima store, given its age, puts it in a minority -- as about 70 percent of the stores scheduled to close opened after the 2006 fiscal year, according to the company.

Announcement of the closures came earlier this summer in response to slowing business for the chain. Price of Starbucks stock was $16.03 a share Thursday, well below the $30 to $40 range it saw just a few years ago.

The Yakima store opened in March 1993. During that same year, the chain also opened a store in Washington D.C., the first store on the East Coast.

Most of the employees working at the store will be transferred to other stores in the area or given a severance package based on job title and current pay rate, a Starbucks spokesman said.

Becky Skaggs, a spokeswomen for Haggen Inc., the Bellingham-based company that owns Top Food & Drug, said that it does not yet have a potential tenant for the soon-to-be vacated space.

Haggen will lose Starbucks at six of its TOP Food & Drug and Haggen stores. The supermarket plans on installing a coffee cart in those stores that would allow customers to purchase coffee, mochas and other beverages made with its house Terra Vita brand, Skaggs said. The supermarket chain will still have a Starbucks in 16 of its stores statewide.

In the meanwhile, Yakima Valley Starbucks fans will still have plenty of locations to choose from. Along with five corporate-run stores in Yakima and Prosser, there are also more than a half-dozen licensed locations of the coffee shop in Safeway supermarkets throughout the Valley.

* Mai Hoang can be reached at 577-7685, or at mhoang@yakimaherald.com.