In 2020, a year of COVID-19 pandemic, the company closed the coffee shop on the ground floor of The Mark office building, since people mostly worked from home and office buildings were mostly empty.
It also opened three new cafés, choosing street front locations for the first time, among which one in a heritage building in Piata Romana and in Piata Universitatii.
Starbucks is the leader of the heavily fragmented coffee shop market in Romania, having posted RON140 million sales in 2010 and competes with foreign actors like McCafé and Gloria Jean’s, as well as with local brands The Coffee Shop and 5 to go. The 2020 data are not available yet.
Starbucks has been operating in Romania for 15 years now but only through franchising partners. The current franchise holder for the country is Poland’s Amrest group.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)