The cafes at 436 University Ave. in downtown Palo Alto, 515 El Camino Real in Menlo Park (at the same shopping center as Safeway) and 4598 El Camino Real in Los Altos will close this Sunday, Nov. 24, the company confirmed.
A longtime downtown Palo Alto location of Peet's will close this weekend. Photo by Elena Kadvany.
Elizabeth Ricardo, senior public relations manager for the Bay Area-born coffee chain, said that the closures are "important for effectively managing our resources and for accelerating our business.
"As with any retail business, Peet's Coffee must keep pace with changing markets to enable healthy growth," she wrote in an email.
She did not answer a question about whether there is anything particular to the local market that is spurring these closures.
Ricardo said the company is working with employees on a one-on-one basis to help them find work at other Peet's locations.
The downtown Palo Alto Peet's has been open since at least 2007 and the Menlo Park outpost, 2009.
Meanwhile, the coffee company has or is currently renovating two nearby Peet's — one at 153 Homer Ave. in Palo Alto (which is reopening on Nov. 22) and the second-ever Peet’s location at 899 Santa Cruz Ave. in Menlo Park. The latter opened in 1971, following the first location in Berkeley in 1966.
In 2012, Peet's was sold to a private German holding company for nearly $1 billion.