Peet’s Coffee closes doors at Pennsylvania locations

After providing Pitt students with hot beverages for slightly more than a year, Peet’s Coffee & Tea has gone cold.

After assessing coffee shop locations in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Peet’s will be closing locations in those states in order to “focus on our top performing markets,” according to spokesperson Amy Lester. 

Peet’s Oakland location on Forbes Avenue is among those to shut its doors after replacing its Oakland corner coffee shop predecessor, Caribou Coffee — which closed on Sept. 9, 2013 — in October 2013.

Peet’s started an “aggressive U.S. expansion” in summer 2013, Lester said in a release last month. Since that time, Peet’s locations in areas like Chicago and Washington, D.C., have had incredible growth, according to Lester. 

Even so, Peet’s will be closing all its locations in three states — six in Ohio, two in Michigan and three in Pennsylvania. Lester said the shops in those three areas have “not performed to our expectations.”

The Peet’s locations in Pennsylvania — all three in Pittsburgh — were located in Oakland, South Side and at the Waterworks Mall. 

Jeff Inman, a professor at Pitt’s Katz Graduate School of Business, said a company like Peet’s probably has specific performance criteria that it compares to the average sales at other stores. 

“If these new [store locations] were way below that figure, they may have figured it was easier to close up and do better somewhere else,” Inman said. 

While Inman said 18 months of sales might not indicate what a store location could make in sales in the long-term future, he added that it would make sense for Peet’s to close its stores in areas that fall below the average sales in the first year at its other locations. 

Peet’s, which is based in Emeryville, Calif., has more than 170 locations in California and more than 220 locations in the United States. 

“At the end of the day, it’s about the dollar sales,” Inman said.

Sam Watson, a junior majoring in English literature, said he only went to Caribou Coffee once, because he usually got his coffee from Market Central or the on-campus coffee carts. Watson added that he frequented Peet’s a few times a week this past summer.

“I liked the atmosphere of the store,” Watson said, adding that he also liked that the employees “didn’t have to wear uniforms.”

Watson said he also preferred Peet’s for the variety of the roasts — dark, medium and light — and he liked that he could sample the coffees before purchasing a cup. 

Watson said he was surprised when he heard the company would be closing its Pennsylvania locations. He said despite the two coffee shops that closed at the Forbes location, he would like to see another coffee shop or diner move into the location. 

“A lot of students are looking for things like craft beer and organic food,” Watson said. “I think [the location] could be a restaurant or coffee shop, like a mom and pop type.”