‘We had no say in whether or not we were going to keep our seating.’
Susana Guerrero, SFGATE
Starbucks stores around San Francisco have been removing indoor seating.
Earlier this year, The San Francisco Standard reported that numerous Starbucks locations in downtown San Francisco had done away with their furniture. Last month, another city store followed suit when the Castro Starbucks at 4094 18th St., locally known as “Bearbucks,” removed all seating and tables, in addition to making other interior changes, as first reported by Hoodline.
In the days that followed the redesign, locals took notice and shared their grievances on social media. One customer tweeted, “@starbucks removed all seating from its SF/Castro location — grab and go is now the model. SMH, you can bet this will become a thing. RIP my third office @Starbucks.” Another deemed the move “classist and ableist,” in line with claims the chain is trying to bar homeless individuals from entering.
Removing indoor seating — which patrons rely on for remote work and community gatherings — is a dramatic change. Greg Zajac, a shift supervisor at the unionized 18th Street Starbucks, told SFGATE that employees could not weigh in on the remodel.
Kyle Trainer, a barista at the location, said he believed Starbucks eliminated seating due to homeless individuals and people with mental illnesses around the neighborhood. He added that Starbucks does not adequately train team members to manage stressful situations and that the chain would rather “remove the seating, close the bathroom and not deal with it.”
The Starbucks location at 4094 18th St. underwent a remodel in March that effectively removed all seating. (Photo: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
“Starbucks [is] attempting to remove the issues of homeless and mental illness from stores,” Trainer said. “Instead of exploring more productive and caring options regarding these issues, they would rather take the easy way out, regardless of how their workers or customers feel.”
SFGATE reached out to Starbucks to find out whether the coffee chain is trending toward a no-seat layout around the city — and if so, why. A spokesperson did not answer in clear terms, stating that Starbucks operates under various formats, which include grab-and-go, drive-thus, and full-service cafes.
When it comes to individual store changes, however, the spokesperson said that Starbucks empowers local cafe leaders (or supervisors) to make decisions on how they want to modify store operations.
Zajac identified Starbucks regional manager Niamh Ramirez as the individual who issued the directive to eliminate chairs at the 18th Street location. After several requests, Ramirez declined to comment on this story.
“We had no say in whether or not we were going to keep our seating,” Zajac said. “We’re fighting to get them back.”
According to Zajac, the Castro Starbucks started making changes last July when a former supervisor decided to close off access to the restroom after feeling “uncomfortable” with people using the facilities. The chairs in the lobby were subsequently removed, Zajac said.
“Originally, when the seating closed, we all kind of went along with it for a while, but maybe two to three weeks afterward, we got a new manager, and we said we’d love to have a conversation about seating.”
Amid the remodel in March, Zajac learned that the Castro shop was flagged as a “high incident store,” which was one of the reasons that the chairs were cleared. He explained that Starbucks deems shoplifting, sleeping, swearing and assault “within or around our space” as examples that could define a “high incident store.”
Starbucks lists many of the items Zajac mentioned as activities it won’t tolerate, per its “Third Place Policy,” which bans sleeping, drug consumption and loud noises, among other things. Specific details on what determined the Castro location as a “high incident store” were not shared by the company.
“Baristas and [shift] supervisors are not made aware of the criteria to classify a store as high incident,” Zajac said.
Late last year, a former Starbucks barista alleged that the company was making changes to keep homeless individuals out. In a viral Tiktok video, former Starbucks barista Lizette Roman-Johnston shared that the coffee chain had covered power outlets due to “‘safety concerns’ regarding the homeless.” Roman-Johnston told SFGATE in late 2022 that a barista at Oakland’s Lakeshore neighborhood told her people experiencing homelessness were the reason some stores were covering outlets. An employee at a different Oakland Starbucks gave the same explanation to SFGATE as the reason for that store’s secured outlets while adding that they didn’t agree with the decision.
At the time of SFGATE’s reporting last year, a spokesperson denied that Starbucks was both removing seating and covering outlets to dissuade homeless people and people with mental illnesses from using cafe spaces.
When the Starbucks spokesperson was asked for this story if it was reasonable to believe that the company sought to remove seating to discourage homeless people or people with mental illnesses from spending time in Starbucks stores, they said that all customers were welcome inside stores as long as they respected customers, store leaders and the company’s “Third Place Policy.”
Zajac said that the lack of furniture has stripped the sense of community the Castro location formerly had.
“This location was once a local meeting place for the LGBTQIA+ community and nicknamed ‘Bearbucks,’ which is a nod to the abundance of gay men in the area,” Zajac said. “With the removal of seating, we are denying our community that ‘welcome’ feeling.”
Written By Susana Guerrero
Susana Guerrero is a reporter for SFGATE covering the Bay Area’s food scene. She received an M.A. in journalism from USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and earned a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley. She’s a Bay Area native. Email her at Susana.Guerrero@sfgate.com
