Coffee drinkers cool to café closures

Most county Starbucks stores will continue to percolate, but three outlets will soon be empty

‘‘Bummer!” was initial reaction of Carole Bunte, who stopped in the Westfield Wheaton Starbucks on Friday to take a break from shopping and drink a decaf latte.

‘‘On a Friday afternoon, you need this,” said the Forest Glen resident. ‘‘I need something to keep me going while I’m running around doing my errands.”

Starbucks is not yet releasing closure dates for specific locations, and representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Statements by the company have said the stores slated to close were under-performing and about 70 percent of them have opened since 2006.

Many, such as those in Wheaton and Gaithersburg, were close to other Starbucks locations. The closures could lead to Starbucks eliminating as many as 12,000 jobs, roughly 20 per location.

The store at the Montgomery Village Plaza opened in September as the village’s only stand-alone Starbucks. It was seen as an anchor to revitalization at the plaza, which Bethesda-based developer JBG Rosenfeld bought for more than $18 million in 2004 with plans to upgrade the storefronts and build 256 upscale condominiums on top. Starbucks was one of the first new businesses to move in.

The next closest Starbucks is barely a quarter-mile away, at a kiosk inside Lakeforest mall. A group of teens who walked over from Cider Mill on Monday night were shocked by the news of the impending closure.

‘‘No!” erupted Holly Velasquez, a 17-year-old with a penchant for frappucinos and all things vanilla bean. ‘‘I love Starbucks. I don’t want them to close!”

‘‘Didn’t this just open?” wondered Diego Paloma, 14.

Sonia Munguia, a Navy lieutenant who lives a block away from the Starbucks being closed in Germantown, said the coffee shop has been an important part of her daily routine. The store, which has a few wooden tables and black wicker chairs placed outside, is also near Northwest High School, located at 13501 Richter Farm Road.

‘‘Whenever I work the graveyard shift, I love to stop by here and get a cup of coffee before work,” said Munguia, 27, who does counterterrorism work at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. No other Starbucks locations are as convenient, she said after purchasing a frozen coffee drink. ‘‘I’ll probably end up making my own coffee,” she said Monday afternoon.

Many other customers, however, felt relieved to hear that their nearest Starbucks — and for some, daily hangouts — would remain open.

Wheaton resident Sandra Schuler was reading and enjoying the air conditioning Friday inside the Starbucks next to Westfield Wheaton at 2800 University Blvd., which survived the cut.

‘‘Wheaton needs something like this,” she said. ‘‘I think it’s the coffee and just getting away, being someplace quiet.”

Maureen Carrington, vice president of the Wheaton & Kensington Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber’s executive committee often holds meetings at the University Boulevard location, which has outdoor seating.

‘‘I think it’s always disappointing when you hear of a retail space being lost or being replaced in the mall, but I do think it’s a sign of the times,” Carrington said. ‘‘The chamber is definitely very supportive of all businesses in Wheaton and we have met and will continue to meet at the Starbucks.”

Silver Spring resident Allison Pistolessi, a former Starbucks employee, frequents the location on Ellsworth Drive in downtown Silver Spring almost daily because she works at the Majestic theater across the street. ‘‘I just come in here and chill before work, get a drink,” she said before taking another sip of her $4 iced triple grande vanilla skim latte.

Not everyone was saddened by the closings, however.

‘‘There are too many Starbucks around anyway,” said John Knox, who said he enjoyed an independently-owned coffee shop near his home in Burtonsville better than the Starbucks there.

Raghu Adimulam, 27, who figured he goes to any of about 10 different Starbucks on a regular basis, agreed.

‘‘Starbucks is like located on every kind of corner,” he said Monday night. ‘‘It’s a matter of driving a couple more miles.”

Staff Writers Sebastian Montes and Meghan Tierneycontributed to this report.