ST. LOUIS, MO – September 26, 2026 (STL.News) Two Starbucks coffeehouses in the St. Louis area are closing as the international coffee chain closes about 250 locations across North America, putting a local face on the ongoing challenges facing restaurants and other food-service businesses despite resilient consumer spending.
The affected Starbucks stores are at 6621 Delmar Blvd. in University City’s Delmar Loop and 7901 Watson Road in Marlborough, according to local reporting on the company’s latest round of closures.
The two locations present strikingly different cases. The Delmar store operates in one of the St. Louis region’s best-known restaurant, shopping and entertainment districts. The Marlborough Starbucks is a nearly new freestanding drive-thru that opened only months ago.
Starbucks announced Sept. 24 that it had reviewed its North American portfolio and identified approximately 250 coffeehouses for closure.
Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams said Starbucks identified locations where it did not believe it could consistently provide the experience it wants for customers and employees, or where it did not see a path to acceptable financial performance.
The closures represent approximately 1% of Starbucks’ more than 18,000 North American coffeehouses.
Starbucks has not publicly disclosed which of those considerations applies specifically to either St. Louis-area location. It would therefore be premature to attribute either closure specifically to rent, sales, competition, labor costs, or another individual factor.
Marlborough Starbucks Opened Only Months Ago
The closing at 7901 Watson Road is particularly notable because the Starbucks is almost new.
The freestanding coffeehouse was constructed in 2025 near Watson and Laclede Station roads and includes a drive-thru. The Starbucks reportedly opened in November 2025.
That means a location designed and built for one of the world’s largest coffee chains is closing less than a year after opening.
The property’s real estate circumstances make the closure even more unusual.
Commercial real-estate marketing information for the property described a long-term Starbucks lease backed by a corporate guarantee. The property was subsequently sold during the first quarter of 2026.
Closing a Starbucks coffeehouse, however, does not necessarily terminate Starbucks’ lease obligations.
Public information reviewed by STL.News does not establish whether Starbucks will continue paying rent after closing the location, whether the lease contains an early-termination provision, or whether the tenant and property owner have reached another agreement.
St. Louis Restaurant Review, also published by St. Louis Media, LLC, examined the restaurant and commercial real estate aspects of the two Starbucks closures in greater detail.
Delmar Loop Losing Starbucks Location
The other affected coffeehouse is the Starbucks at 6621 Delmar Blvd. in University City.
The location sits in the Delmar Loop, surrounded by restaurants, entertainment businesses, shops, and other food-and-beverage establishments.
Its circumstances are substantially different from those of the suburban Watson Road store.
The Loop location operates in a pedestrian-oriented commercial district where consumers can choose among independent businesses and national brands. The Watson Road location represents the newer suburban drive-thru model that has become increasingly important to national restaurant and beverage chains.
Yet Starbucks selected both locations for closure during the same portfolio review.
Again, the company has not publicly disclosed the individual financial performance of either store.
Restaurant Industry Faces Difficult Economics
The two Starbucks closures arrive during a challenging period for the broader U.S. restaurant industry.
Restaurants have faced years of increases in food, labor, utilities, occupancy, insurance, supplies, credit-card processing, and other expenses.
According to the National Restaurant Association, total expenses for an average restaurant increased approximately 36% between 2019 and 2026.
That is a particularly significant increase for an industry that traditionally operates with thin profit margins.
Before the pandemic, the association estimates a typical independent restaurant had a pre-tax profit margin of only about 5% of sales.
Food and labor each accounted for about 33 cents of every sales dollar, while expenses including utilities, occupancy, supplies, administration, repairs, maintenance, and credit-card processing consumed another about 29%.
That left relatively little room for unexpected increases in expenses.
The economics have become substantially more difficult since then.
Average hourly earnings for restaurant employees have increased approximately 41% from pre-pandemic levels, according to the National Restaurant Association, while average wholesale food prices are about 35% higher.
Other operating expenses have also increased.
The association estimates utilities, occupancy, supplies, and credit-card processing expenses have all risen in double digits since 2019.
Restaurants Need Much Higher Sales to Maintain Margins
The magnitude of those increases helps explain why restaurant sales alone can give an incomplete picture of a business’s financial health.
The National Restaurant Association modeled what would happen to a hypothetical restaurant that generated $1.5 million in annual sales before the pandemic and produced a 5% pre-tax profit margin.
If that restaurant experienced the industry’s subsequent expense increases without increasing sales, it would move from a $75,000 profit to a substantial loss.
Under the association’s model, the restaurant would need annual sales of about $1.93 million—about 29% above its 2019 sales—simply to break even under the higher expense structure.
To restore the same 5% pre-tax profit margin it enjoyed before the pandemic, sales would need to reach about $2.03 million, or 36% above the 2019 level.
That illustrates one of the industry’s biggest challenges.
A restaurant can generate significantly more revenue than it did several years ago and still fail to produce greater profits.
One-Third of Operators Reported No Profit
Those pressures are showing up in industry surveys.
The National Restaurant Association reported that 33% of restaurant operators said their businesses were not profitable during the first half of 2026.
The situation was even more difficult in 2025, when 42% of operators reported that their restaurants were not profitable.
Customer traffic has also remained uneven.
The association now projects inflation-adjusted restaurant sales will increase approximately 0.8% in 2026, below the 1.3% increase it initially forecast.
Nominal restaurant sales can rise while the industry’s actual growth remains modest because higher menu prices account for part of the increase.
Menu Prices Continue Rising
Consumers feel that pressure when they receive their restaurant bills.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that food-away-from-home prices — which include restaurant and other food-service purchases — were 3.4% higher in July 2026 than in July 2025.
USDA’s August Food Price Outlook forecasts food-away-from-home prices will increase approximately 3.6% during 2026.
Restaurant menu prices have increased considerably over a longer period.
According to the National Restaurant Association‘s analysis of federal inflation data, average menu prices increased approximately 36% between February 2020 and May 2026.
Those price increases have helped operators absorb higher costs, but restaurants cannot necessarily continue raising menu prices indefinitely.
Consumers have their own financial limits.
When restaurant prices become too expensive relative to household budgets, customers may dine out less often, order cheaper menu items, seek promotions, or prepare more meals at home.
Restaurants are therefore caught between the need to recover rising expenses and the need to maintain customer traffic.
Starbucks Is Closing Stores Despite Sales Growth
The Starbucks closures also demonstrate why individual restaurant closings should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that an entire company is struggling.
Starbucks says its North American business has returned to growth.
At the same time, management is evaluating individual stores and eliminating locations that no longer satisfy its operational or financial requirements.
The company is also continuing its broader Back to Starbucks strategy and accelerating improvements to existing coffeehouses. Starbucks says it is working to complete upgrades at about 1,500 locations.
That combination — investing in some locations while closing others — is common in the restaurant industry.
Large chains continually evaluate individual restaurants based on factors that can include sales, customer traffic, occupancy costs, labor requirements, drive-thru performance, proximity to other stores, and the amount of additional investment a property might require.
The financial performance of an individual restaurant can therefore differ greatly from the performance of the overall brand.
Independent Restaurants Have Less Room for Error
For independent restaurant owners, the same economic pressures can be even harder to manage.
A company the size of Starbucks can close an underperforming location, transfer employees, redirect customers to nearby stores, and keep thousands of other coffeehouses running.
A locally owned restaurant with one location does not have those advantages.
A substantial increase in rent, insurance, food costs, or payroll can materially change the economics of the entire business.
Restaurants also cannot easily eliminate their two largest expenses.
They need food to serve customers, and they need employees to prepare and serve it.
Cutting labor too aggressively can slow service and worsen the customer experience. Reducing ingredient quality can damage a restaurant’s reputation. Raising menu prices too quickly can reduce customer traffic.
Operators therefore have relatively few painless options when costs rise.
St. Louis Restaurants Face the Same Pressures
St. Louis restaurants operate within the same national economic environment.
Local establishments must balance menu prices against payroll, ingredients, utilities, insurance, rent or mortgage payments, credit-card fees, maintenance, technology, and numerous other expenses.
The Starbucks closure in Marlborough is particularly interesting because the location appears to have many of the characteristics restaurant companies traditionally seek.
It is newly constructed. It has a drive-thru. It is positioned along an established commercial corridor. And it carries one of the world’s most recognizable coffee brands.
Yet Starbucks still selected the location for closure.
Without store-specific financial information, it is impossible to know precisely why.
That uncertainty is itself an important reminder when examining restaurant closures.
A closed restaurant does not necessarily mean a failed concept, a weak neighborhood, or declining consumer demand. Restaurant economics involve numerous variables, and a location that generates significant sales can still fail to meet an operator’s required return.
Restaurant Business Remains Resilient but Difficult
Americans continue spending heavily at restaurants, and the National Restaurant Association expects the industry to remain resilient.
But resilience should not be mistaken for easy profitability.
Food and labor costs remain substantially above pre-pandemic levels. Other expenses have also climbed. Menu prices have risen, and consumers are increasingly sensitive to what eating out costs.
The result is an industry in which restaurants need substantially more revenue simply to generate the same profit margins they produced several years ago.
That broader environment provides important context for the Starbucks closures in the St. Louis area.
For customers, the immediate effect is simple: two Starbucks locations are disappearing.
For restaurant owners, developers and commercial real-estate investors, the story is more complicated.
The Delmar Loop is losing an established Starbucks in one of the region’s best-known entertainment districts.
Marlborough is losing a nearly new drive-thru Starbucks that opened less than a year ago.
And Starbucks — despite operating more than 18,000 North American coffeehouses — decided both locations should be among approximately 250 stores eliminated from its portfolio.
The decisions underscore a basic reality of today’s restaurant business:
Higher sales alone do not guarantee profitability, and even major restaurant brands are scrutinizing individual locations as operating costs remain substantially higher than before the pandemic.
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