Starbucks in Columbia’s Five Points, a 20-year fixture of the district, will close
A two-decade fixture of Columbia’s Five Points district will soon stop brewing.
Starbucks plans to close its location at 747 Saluda Ave., according to Richard Burts, who owns the building where the shop is located near the iconic Five Points fountain. Burts said staff members at the Starbucks told him of the impending closure on Tuesday, adding that the store would close on April 2.
A spokesman for Starbucks confirmed the April 2 Saluda Avenue closure late Wednesday afternoon, and said employees of that store have been given the opportunity to transfer to other nearby stores.
“As a standard course of business, we continually evaluate our store portfolio, using various criteria to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers,” the spokesperson said about the Five Points plans.
The Starbucks in Five Points was one of the company’s first stores in the Columbia area, Burts said. It has been located there for 20 years.
Burts said he is still processing the coming exit of Starbucks but said the Saluda Avenue address will be a good home for the next tenant there.
“It is a great location, right across the street from the (Five Points) plaza,” Burts said. “I’ll have to give it a lot of thought as to what goes back in there. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble renting it. I think there will be plenty of people who would like to have a space like that that has outdoor seating and is across from the fountain.”
The Post and Courier Columbia first reported the Five Points Starbucks news.
This won’t be the first time recently that Starbucks has closed a downtown Columbia location in a high-profile entertainment district. The coffee giant closed the Starbucks in the Vista at 831 Gervais St. in late 2021. A Cava Mediterranean restaurant is now preparing to go into that Gervais St. space.
But Starbucks also has continued to spread its footprint across the Midlands. There are more than 30 Starbucks stores in the Columbia and Lexington area, according to a store locator tool on the company’s website.
Late last year a new Starbucks was opened at 356-A Longs Pond Road in Lexington, near I-20. Also last year, Starbucks opened a shop at 2807 Rosewood Drive, in the Fifth and Sloan mixed-use development. And the company has been prepping a store in the 650 Lincoln development near Colonial Life Arena.
This story was originally published March 8, 2023 at 2:12 PM.
