I just read a breaking report on CNN.com and although it's 1:23 a.m., I just had to share.
Starbucks is closing 600 stores nationwide, according to this report in Fortune and I guess on the AP wire. They are culling unprofitable stores from the franchise, it says.
The coffee retailer says it will close 600 stores, about 8.5% of its 7,100 total stores, an expansion of the 100-store closing target it had previously announced.
The Seattle coffee chain has been feeling the pinch of a tightening economy. In February, the company fired 600 employees and conducted a in-store retraining program to try and revive the Starbuck Experience, as CEO Howard Schultz has called it.
I did not know there was a Starbuck Experience, and I used to go daily to at least one of the 4 Starbucks that were in close proximity to where I worked in Boston (Copley Square). My experience was "get 'em in, get 'em out."
I realize it's different here, where the people at our store ask your name, tell you theirs and generally chat you up (in the non-romantic sense) - something I found quite disconcerting when I first moved here. Maybe that's the 'Experience'?
Not that I ever go in there, mind you ... hey, I just found this website, I Hate Starbucks.
Did you know? That Starbucks took its name from the character Starbuck in "Moby Dick?"
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
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3 comments:
oh god please close the Newburyport branch!
When the Newburyport Starbucks franchise closed for two weeks this summer, patrons either went cold turkey or bought coffee at other establishments.
I worry if the Starbucks closes that the other establishments may follow suit due to lack of patrons wanting an experience found at Starbucks and not at Caffe di Sienna, for instance. All the more reason for A-frames to stay.
The other establishments will probably maintain. People who go to Starsucks are not Coffee Drinkers. They are Frappachino, and other Foofy drink drinkers. When someone orders a 20 oz drink with one shot and extra whip, thats not coffee either. They would be just as well off to tape a Coffee Bean to a straw and wave it over a cup of Hot Chocolate as to put any Coffee in there. Thats one reason why a few months ago, they closed all the Starsucks around for 3 hours to train Barristas how to make Coffee, nobody that comes in orders coffee so noone knew how to make it. I got news for the Corporate heads, not knowing how to make coffee is not the problem ;-)! Its what they have to work with thats the problem.
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