A year after Starbucks closed its pickup store in Commerce Court, the siren logo is still on the door. The windows still read “PICK UP: Designed for your order-ahead experience.” Behind the glass, the store is still fully fitted out, as if it could reopen tomorrow.
Starbucks closed 13 Toronto stores in a single weekend last September, many with just two days’ notice to staff. This week, it closed four more. So 6ix Retail went back, logging more than 25,000 steps across the downtown core on Saturday, September 26th, 2026 to see what became of the stores it left behind.
Almost all of them are still empty. Of the nine locations we checked, eight are vacant, and at several, last year’s closure letter is still taped to the window.
Only one has a new tenant on the way: BYND Coffee Bar, an independent coffee shop coming soon to Adelaide and Peter.
The walk turned up something else, too. Most of the stores Starbucks closed last year weren’t tired old cafés. Seven of the 13 had opened in 2020 or later, and two had been open less than two years, according to opening dates tracked by Starbucks Everywhere, a website that documents the chain’s locations. One closed 11 years to the day after it opened.
Sugar Wharf, 31 Cooper St.
Open: June 2024 to September 2025
This store had one of the shortest runs on the list. It opened in June 2024 at the base of Sugar Wharf, the Menkes mixed-use development on the eastern waterfront, across the street from the Redpath sugar refinery that gives the neighbourhood its name. Fifteen months later, it was gone.
It should have been a sure thing. Sugar Wharf’s towers are filling with residents, and Sugar Beach and the Queens Quay promenade are steps away.
A year later, the space is still empty. Its neighbours are filling in around it: a Scotiabank branch is next door, and the Sugar Wharf directory sign out front now lists Unity Fitness Harbourfront, which bills itself as a new 40,000-square-foot wellness club. Farm Boy is across the street, along with both head offices of the LCBO and Canada Goose.
Pickup – Commerce Court, 25 King St. W.
Open: February 2020 to September 2025
This was Canada’s first pickup-only Starbucks. It opened in the Commerce Court concourse on Feb. 4, 2020, built for Financial District commuters who ordered on the app and grabbed their coffee on the way through the PATH. Six weeks later, the pandemic emptied the towers above it.
It held on for more than five years, but the format didn’t survive Starbucks’ “Back to Starbucks” plan, which has moved away from pickup-only stores and toward cafés with seating. Starbucks had also planned a street-level store outside King subway station before the pandemic; the hoarding went up, but the store never opened.
There’s a postscript. In June 2025, Starbucks opened a new café at 350 Bay St., two blocks away. Three months later, it closed Commerce Court. This week, it closed 350 Bay too.
A year later, nothing has changed. The unit still wears its full Starbucks Pickup branding: the siren on the glass door, the “Pickup Commerce Court” sign, and a window graphic promising an “order-ahead experience.” Inside, the store is still furnished, with the fixtures and equipment never removed. It’s the only one of last year’s closures we found still dressed as a Starbucks.
Adelaide & Peter, 338 Adelaide St. W.
Open: Sept. 27, 2014, to Sept. 27, 2025
This one closed 11 years to the day after it opened.
It was the kind of neighbourhood Starbucks regulars get attached to. Online reviews describe baristas who greeted customers by name. And it closed just as the neighbourhood around it was booming: the 47-storey Peter & Adelaide Condos are rising next door, bringing hundreds of new units to the corner.
This corner is getting coffee again. BYND Coffee Bar is coming soon to the space, and its blue patio railings are already up along the Peter Street side, while the front doors are still wrapped.
When it opens, an independent coffee bar will be serving the same corner Starbucks gave up, just as the tower next door fills with new residents.
Richmond & Spadina, 438 Richmond St. W.
Open: Before 2004 to September 2025
This store sat at the base of The Morgan, a condo building at Richmond and Spadina, and served the corner for more than 20 years. It saw the Entertainment District shift from nightclubs to condos, serving residents, office workers and the club crowd along the way.
A year later, nothing has moved in. The corner unit still sits under its black awning, the windows lined with brown paper and notices taped to the door. A city wayfinding sign on the corner marks the spot as the heart of the Garment District.
West Block, 105 Housey St.
Open: September 2022 to September 2025
West Block was a big bet on a new neighbourhood. The store opened in 2022 in the West Block complex at Bathurst and Lake Shore, home to a flagship Loblaws, next to the Fort York condo cluster. It lasted three years.
The Starbucks had its own pavilion at the edge of West Block, under the Gardiner Expressway, wrapped in a bright geometric mural. The mural is still there. The windows behind it are covered in brown paper.
The West Block directory sign lists Loblaws, Shoppers Drug Mart, Joe Fresh, the LCBO and TD. There’s no coffee shop on it.
East Liberty & Strachan, 39 East Liberty St.
Open: June 2022 to September 2025
Liberty Village is one of the densest condo neighbourhoods in the city, which made this 2022 opening look like an easy win. It lasted just over three years.
The neighbourhood hasn’t stopped growing.
The store sat at the base of Liberty House, at 15 Solidarity Way, beside the Forest Hill Farmhouse. The unit is still empty, its windows covered in decorative film. Starbucks’ closure letter, thanking customers for being “part of our story,” was still taped to the glass a year later.
Pickup – 1030 Queen West, 1030 Queen St. W.
Open: October 2022 to September 2025
This was one of Starbucks’ pickup-only stores, a small app-first shop on West Queen West, two blocks west of Ossington and Queen. It opened in 2022, when the company was still betting on the format, and closed three years later as Starbucks abandoned it.
There’s a leasing sign now. The corner unit, at the base of a restored red-brick Victorian building at Brookfield Street, is wrapped in Avison Young “Retail Space for Lease” signage. Next door, furniture brand Cozey opened its first Toronto showroom.
College & Bathurst, 440 College St.
Open: March 2023 to September 2025
This was one of the youngest stores on the list, opening in March 2023 near College and Bathurst, on a strip better known for independent cafés. It lasted two and a half years.
The store took up the ground floor of an ornate stone building with fluted columns and an arched entrance, one of the grandest storefronts on the strip. A year later, the windows are papered over from the inside. Starbucks’ closure letter, promising to close the store “by the end of this week,” is still taped to the glass.
1 Yorkville, 1 Yorkville Ave.
Open: February 2024 to September 2025
This store opened in 2024 as a relocation within Yorkville, at the base of the 1 Yorkville condo tower near Yonge and Bloor. It lasted just 19 months.
The storefront sits in a row of restored Victorian brick buildings that the tower was built behind, with a glass tower rising overhead. A year later, it’s still empty, with a for-lease sign in the window.
It isn’t the only one: several of the heritage storefronts along the row are papered over awaiting an engaging future tenant mix, including a McDonalds set to open at the south end.
Outside the core
Four of last year’s closures were outside the downtown core. We’ll update this article when we visit these locations in the future.
Yonge & Craighurst, 2630 Yonge St.
A midtown store on Yonge Street north of Eglinton Avenue.
Danforth & Monarch Park, 1417 Danforth Ave.
Open: January 2016 to September 2025
An East Danforth neighbourhood store that ran for nearly 10 years.
Kipling/Evans, 374 Evans Ave.
Open: September 2013 to September 2025
One of the oldest on the list, serving Etobicoke’s Kipling and Evans area for 12 years.
Long Branch & Lake Shore, 3559 Lake Shore Blvd. W.
Open: December 2013 to September 2025
When this store opened in 2013, the Long Branch BIA celebrated it on Facebook as “our local Starbucks.” It lasted almost 12 years.
The scorecard
Here’s where the nine locations we checked stand:
- Still empty: Sugar Wharf, Commerce Court, Richmond & Spadina, West Block and East Liberty & Strachan
- For lease: 1030 Queen West and 1 Yorkville
- Coming soon: BYND Coffee Bar at Adelaide & Peter
None of the 13 has reopened as a Starbucks.
What it says about Toronto
This week’s closures add four more Toronto storefronts to the list, including Portland & Adelaide, which opened less than a year ago.
The same walk took us past stores Starbucks closed as far back as 2021, when it shut 29 Toronto locations in a matter of days. Some of those spaces have changed hands several times. In a few, Starbucks has quietly come back. That story is coming next.
Know what’s happening with one of these spaces? Let us know.
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, The Canadian Opera Company, Starbucks Canada and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.