Starbucks is shutting hundreds of cafes and opening futuristic pickup-only stores in their place.

The days of meeting in a warmly-decorated Starbucks and mulling over Excel spreadsheets over a frappuccino are over, for now.

The pandemic decimates dine-in traffic for restaurants, and Starbucks is responding by shifting a large portion of its business to the pickup-only format. Over the next 18 months, the company plans to close 400 company-owned locations and open 300 new ones. The new stores will largely be pickup-oriented stores.

Review

•     Starbucks opened its first-ever Starbucks Pickup store in November, a pickup-only location that lets customers order ahead through the chain`s mobile app and pick up their orders in-store.
  
  
•     The pandemic has forced the coffee chain to lean into the pickup-only store format. Starbucks plans to shut around 400 sit-down cafes and build around 300 new pickup-only stores.
  
  
•     I visited the Starbucks Pickup store in Manhattan, New York, and was impressed by the concept.
  
  
•     Pickup`s speedy, high-tech system for ordering coffee could definitely transform the fast-coffee industry. But Starbucks needs to make the concept more accessible to walk-ins, and the company must work hard to build customer awareness before the Pickup concept will run as smoothly as it`s supposed to.