SEATTLE (AP) -- Six of the 600 company-owned stores Starbucks plans to close by early next year are in Wisconsin, with 2 of them right here in central Wisconsin.
The stores are in Appleton, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Madison, Marshfield, and Wisconsin Rapids.
The company announced earlier this month that it would close hundreds of company-owned stores in the U.S. starting in July and continuing through the first half of the next fiscal year. But Starbucks didn't say which locations would be shut down, until now.
The move to close the stores is a turnabout from Starbucks' aggressive expansion plans.
Traffic and profits declined recently at Starbucks as the faltering economy has many consumer re-evaluating discretionary spending.