Caribou Coffee will close 80 under-performing stores and rebrand another 88 Caribou outlets to Peet's Coffee & Tea, according to reports.
The Caribou Coffee Company was sold to the Joh. A. Benckiser Group, a private equity group based in Germany, for just shy of $340 million in December 2012, according to the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal. The Joh. A. Benckiser Group is a majority shareholder of Peet's Coffee & Tea Inc.
Some locations, however, will reopen as Peet's Coffee & Tea locations, marking the company's entrance into the Ohio market.
An employee at the store told Lakewood Patch on Sunday that the staff was "just told" about the closing.
"We're not very happy about it," said the employee, who asked not to be named. "We're all going to lose our jobs. We're going to be given the option to reapply for a job at Peet's, but we don't know much."
He said the Lakewood location is one of the stores that will be converted into a Peet's, however, he added that no timeline has been given for the change.
Peet's Coffee was founded in Berkeley, CA, and is now headquartered in Emeryville, CA. The majority of its stores are located in California. The company also maintains stores in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington state.
