Starbucks To Close 600 U.S. Stores

SEATTLE — Starbucks Corp. has announced it's closing 600 underperforming stores in the United States.

The Seattle-based premium coffee company also announced Tuesday it expects to open fewer than 200 new company-operated stores in the United States in fiscal 2009.

The company says it will try to place workers from closed stores in remaining Starbucks.

Comments

[starrianna]

GOOD!

Now pay your workers their G*ddamn tips, you sons of bitches!

P.S. People are talking now about how your coffee sucks.

[Eric8869]

Wow so many Starbucks haters out there. I have to defend them.

Their CEO's is one of the best in the country. He demands that each employee get health benefits becuase he was raised in the projects. His father was on disability and they couldn't afford to go to the Doctor.

The places are nice, smell great and generally improve the neighborhoods they enter. They have done wonders for many areas in the big cities that were bad areas. Having a Starbucks attracts other businesses around them.

I like thier coffee and yes I could make coffee at home cheaper but I pay for the Starbucks experience. (which is what they sell) I enjoy the staff, the music playing, I can work on my laptop, I meet friends there.

Quit hating! All this news means is more unemployment. Complain about Bush - not Starbucks.

[yesyesyes]

A friend got a part-time job at Starbucks since her full time husband(another industry) lost his bennies; now her whole family has benifits due to her part time job at Starbucks. I get my coffee from Cafe Mam in Eugene.

[tds1273]

Well Shultzy, thats what you get for selling out the SEATTLE SuperSonics.

[monty]

I stopped going to Starbucks years ago when their coffee started tasting burnt and weak, and started costing more than my sandwich at lunch.

Now I go to my local coffeehouse which has the best tasting coffee for half the price.

[Julie02]

They will end up closing more than 600 stores as this fiasco of an economy continues to take it's toll.

[willfarnaby]

...althoug­h a corporate culture that promulgates "small" as "Tall" does fit right in with the Bush-Cheney-McBush "reality".

[willfarnaby]

Who shall mourn this modern tragedy? (The demise of generally lousy tasting, IMHO, grossly over-priced coffee products.)

[ChristopherLib]

I'm proud to say I have not set foot in a Starbucks in more than two years. What a lousy sorry waste of money these sad white elitists pay for coffee. I make coffee at home is something called a coffee maker. Glad I'm not stupid enough to pay $1000 a year for coffee.

[MNCurler]

Wow- I didn't know that only "sad white elitists" went to Starbucks. I assumed that "happy minority common folk" went there also.

[MsPeppy]

Nah, they go to Dunkin' Donuts

[CharlieMarlowe]

Six years for me, and ,then, only because I had coupons. I still remember the rapid heartbeat from one of their concoctions. I also remember being laughed at when I asked them explain what the drinks were because I don't know what a latte is, or a mocha whatever. I consider such knowledge a useless; a waste of brain space. I want coffee. If it has another name or fancy ingredients I'm not interested. However, the point here is that many people are losing their jobs, many of them students, and that is sad.

[yesyesyes]

Don't break your arm...

[BadgersBite]

So now there will only be a Starbucks on ever other corner!

[blooddoc]

Dang - this means there will only be 10 left in our local mall....

[shedances]

This story depresses me ... I can't survive without my morning 2 cups of Joe (and a bisquit, if they've got fresh ones). What to do now?

K

[starrianna]

Good Lord...

Try doing something adventurous for once!

Try something new! Stop being a robot.

[turkeyneck]

er...brew your own chez toi? you can even use Starbucks' beans if you must and will be forced to settle for your own good company. they've got some great coffee makers over at Amazon...

[AllAmericanAmericanBoy]

This is terrible news, if they shut down half the stores in my town there will only be two per block. I guess I'll have to shop around to find a decent $6 cup of coffee that tastes like ice cream.

[maca]

If you're really a coffee lover, buy green beans, roast and grind them yourself. You'll have the freshest gourmet cup available at a price less than the cheapest can of crap in the grocery store.

[jood42]

Thank God. I feel sorry for the employees, but the stores are traffic disasters. People crazed for their next cup, or trying to drive their SUVs while leaving with a cup in one hand and a cell phone in the other are a daily hazard on my way to work. The greater the store density, the worse these accidents-­in-waiting affect a neighborhood, and with the store locations strategically placed to make parking difficult or impossible, the obnoxiousness of the customers is amplified beyond reason or safety.

I'm really surprised their "foot traffic" store location model didn't take into account how deranged people in vehicles can get when they need their caffeine and can't find a place to park.

[Vr6]

Out sourced so much now the only thing to do is to down size - is this just the beginning symptom!?

[TrevorAlan]

Are they going to close one of the two (Houston?) stores that are literally across the street from each other? There are some places where they have a store and two blocks away a sort of mini-location within a Target or Barnes and Noble. I think they can shed a few locations without disapearing.

[invisihand]

"Are they going to close one of the two (Houston?) stores that are literally across the street from each other?"

Yes, and thus ends Houston's reign as the center of the universe. ;)