Starbucks' roughly 6,000 licensed cafes will remain open, though Starbucks said it would make training materials available to the employees of those stores.
The announcement from the world's biggest coffee company came shortly after the arrest of two black men at one of its Philadelphia cafes last week which sparked accusations of racial profiling at the chain.
Protesters have called for a boycott of the company, in what has become the biggest public relations test yet for Chief Executive Kevin Johnson.