Caribou Coffee plans to focus on its home market of Minnesota, in part, by closing and rebranding its locations in Chicago.
The chain will close the majority of its 18 Chicago locations by noon Sunday, while converting some to Peet’s Coffee & Tea shops. The revamp will begin over the next 12 to 18 months, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Caribou announced it was expanding within Chicago, its second largest market, after Joh. A Benckiser, a German investment company, bought the company for $340 million last year. However the company has decided to trim its underperforming locations, and 80 stores outside the company’s home base in Minnesota will be closed.
Another 88 stores will be converted into Peet’s Coffee & Tea shops over the next year. The chain has 66 locations in Illinois, but a list of which locations were closing and which would be converted was not available, as reported by the Chicago Tribune.
Following the company’s revamp, there will 486 Caribou locations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Western Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, Denver and 10 international markets.
The Sunday closings will cause 1,000 to lose their jobs, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Customers and employees are taking action by creating Facebook pages, such as “Boycott Caribou Coffee.”
