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Two Starbucks coffeehouses at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport are set to shutter — but the closures are not up to the Seattle-based coffee giant.
The spaces are operated by HMS Host, an airport food-service company. Other concessionaires won a recent round of bidding for those locations at the airport.
Workers will be laid off at the store in Concourse A from Dec. 31, 2026, to Jan. 13, 2027, per a state filing received Friday by the Employment Security Department. But it wasn't immediately clear how many.
The notice confirmed the closure of the store due to a contract expiration. The lease ends Dec. 31, said Port of Seattle spokesperson Kassie McKnight-Xi, and Anchorhead Coffee will replace it.
Another Starbucks location in Concourse C is also slated to close and be replaced by The Flora Bakehouse, she added. A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification has not been issued for that coffeehouse yet, so it is unclear how many employees will be laid off.
Closure dates for the stores have not been set. When they're gone, two Starbucks stores will be left at the airport.
We know customers want more Starbucks at the airport, so we’re disappointed this contract wasn’t renewed," a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement.
"We’ll continue serving customers at our other onsite SEA airport locations and hope to work with the airport to expand our presence at SEA in the future," the spokesperson added.
Last month, the Port of Seattle announced 17 new dining and retail locations that were chosen from a competitive bidding process. "Bidding for space when a contract lease ends is a normal part of the airport dining and retail process here and across the country," McKnight-Xi said.
In the resulting layoffs from the Starbucks closure, affected positions include baristas, utility workers, general managers and shift managers.
However, there is a discrepancy in the state filing for the store in Concourse A. While Chris Keaton, senior director of operations at HMS Host, wrote about the separations of 13 employees, the number of affected workers on an attached list amounted to around 135. The state also counted 135.
HMS Host and the Employment Security Department did not respond to requests for comment on Friday seeking to clarify the number of layoffs.
The company confirmed the laid-off employees are unionized in the filing. Unite Here Local 8 represents those concession workers.
"We call on the Port of Seattle to ensure that the new companies taking over the Starbucks locations rehire current workers and deliver on the promise of quality jobs at the airport," said secretary-treasurer Stefan Moritz.
"These were union members, and we will support them to retain their positions and have the same standard that they had won at HMS.
This story has been updated with a different Starbucks statement.
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