Downtown Lodi Starbucks closing

Apr 07, 2009 (Lodi News-Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- SBUX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Lodi will have one less Starbucks and Downtown will soon have another store vacancy come July: The 5-year-old coffee shop is closing.

Though employees could not speak to the media about the closure of the 111 N. School St. store, word has spread quickly during the past week among the loyal customers who work Downtown and walk a couple blocks to get a cup of coffee.

On Monday, the company posted a list of 76 California stores that are closing, with the Lodi location on the list.

"There's got to be something we can do. Downtown needs Starbucks," said Rita Sperling, president of the Downtown Lodi Business Partnership.

Starbucks corporation wouldn't comment specifically on the Lodi store closure, but a spokesperson said some stores are closing by the end of April and more are closing by the end of the fiscal year.

Employees at the store said they were told last week that the shop would close by July.

Whether the dozen employees who work there will become unemployed or can transfer to a nearby Starbucks is not known. In the meantime, they've asked some of their loyal customers to go online or call the corporate office to ask for another chance at keeping the store open.

The coffee shop opened in mid-May 2004, filling the space vacated by Me-n-Ed's Slices pizza eatery.

At the time, it was the second Starbucks store to open in Lodi.

Since then, one opened directly across the street from longtime Lodi staple House of Coffee on Ham Lane.

Sperling pointed out that the shopping center at the northeast corner of Kettleman Lane and Lower Sacramento Road has a total of three Starbucks -- a store with a drive-thru, along with shops inside both Target and Safeway. Another drive-thru is located at the other end of Kettleman Lane, near Highway 99.

Those stores are remaining open.

The Flag City Starbucks has been on the company's "closure list" since July of last year but the coffee shop is still open.

Among the locations closing this time are a Starbucks at Hammer Lane and Lower Sacramento Road in Stockton, along with the Elk Grove store at Highway 99 and Bond Road, two stores in Sacramento, one in Ripon and a store in Modesto.

The closure announcement is the latest swinging door in a 49,331-square-foot building that has seen much turnover since it was built in 2000 and the movie theater opened the following year.

Except for Scooters, on Elm Street, and Moo Moos, just to the north of Starbucks, the stores in the theater building haven't been open for more than a couple years before going out of business.

In April 2007, Fanatix Pizza Pub closed suddenly with little warning one year after it opened, the third business in less than six years to try making a profit at the 123 W. Elm St. location.

The first restaurant to open there was Fuegos, a Mexican restaurant that started in October 2002 and closed two years later. Two months later Downtown Pizza and Pasta opened, but it closed one year later.

A Teriyaki Time sign has been hanging atop the business for a couple months, but there is no indication of when it will open.

Next door, the windows still bear Quizno's paint, though the sandwich shop closed in August 2007.

A message left Monday for Edward Barkett with Stockton-based Atlas Properties, which owns the building, wasn't returned.

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