Starbucks that offered comfort during Waldo Canyon Fire to close

Mountain Shadows will say goodbye to a place that offered comfort during the Waldo Canyon Fire. Starbucks on Centennial Boulevard and Vindicator Drive will close Saturday.

Customers said this Starbucks has become more than a chain coffee shop.

“It was just a neighborhood coffee place,” Doris Munson said.

During and after the Waldo Canyon Fire, the neighborhood coffee place became a place of comfort. Manager Katie Boswell said people came in when they had nowhere else to go. Those who lost their homes met with insurance agents to talk about their losses and with builders to talk about future plans.

“With that fire, we saw customers coming in and finding some normalcy here,” Boswell said.

The coffee shop was also a place to come together as a community.

“It was sad coming back because the neighborhood had been changed forever,” Munson said. “But this was a place where you could meet those people (who lost everything) to give them support.”

A shelf inside the Starbucks has mugs – some broken and some just dirty – that were found among the ashes.

“It was a symbol of what the community has gone through and also to represent the hope of where we’ll be when every single home is rebuilt,” Boswell said.

Starbucks won’t be there by the time every single home is rebuilt, but customers and employees said the sense of community built there always will.

A company spokesperson said the coffee shop is closing because it is the course of business. The employees will relocate to other Starbucks locations.