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

[Kevbo68]

Now millions will show up at Dunkin Donuts and confusedly leave all sorts of extra cash at the counter.

[Snerdgronk]

Yes ... Undoubtedly, 'confusedly' ...

Snerd

[Raymondf]

Their coffee is no better, don't like their donuts either.

[NTO08]

Starbucks blows...ANYTHING is better than their garbage...

[Snerdgronk]

Apparently they're trying to come up with a logo, that captures the closing for business event. I've heard that the current leader is, "Bean there, Done Frap ..."

Snerd

[gevan]

When they started selling Starbucks by the bag in the local supermarket, they went into business against themselves. Always a good model, that. But with essentials like gas and real food going up and up, exotic frivolities like the Starbucks experience run smack dab into inelastic economies.

[Snerdgronk]

gev: "... When they started selling Starbucks by the bag in the local supermarket, they went into business against themselves."

SG: Rumour has it they were working on expanding the 'Trickle Down' model of economics ...

Snerd

[FCBarca]

600 eh?...Guess that means it'll just be the stores in a 5 square mile area near me.

Couldn't happen to a worse purveyor of 'coffee'...Now just 10,000 more stores to go

[NTO08]

Exactly FCBarca...NO RIP for Starbucks...buh bye!
Let the door bell hit ya...

[greenmonk]

I hope one of them was the one they set up for the torturers at Guantanamo Bay

[Raymondf]

No, that's the coffee they serve to the detainees.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Coffer shops and drinking therein as a FAD have periodically recurred since the 17th Century; eventually, the fervour, the frenzy, and certainly the novelty give way......

[Snerdgronk]

... and the buzzz ... it wears off too

[cafemocha]

People scoffed 5 years ago when I bought an $800 espresso machine for home use. I'm laughing.
Making a double giant mocha at home has been more convenient, better tasting, less expensive, more fun and more consistent than the brews of any of these designer coffee houses.
The only places that top the home made delights are the grand cafes one finds in Venice, Rome, or Vienna. I'm giving my machine another big "at-a-girl" hug, she's a shining beauty.
Of course sometimes ya gotta go to a cafe for the "la dolce vita" experience, but standing in line for a $4.00 whatever-to-go ain't it so it doesn't make much sense.

As for the dearth in supply of the $.50-$.75 priced Jo-2-go, well that looks like a business opportunity that Starbucks is missing out on.

[wanderingsalmon]

Same with good craft ales; here in Portland OR (Beervana) I can choose from probably 20 top notch microbrewerys...and while this is good for a Saturday night out, I can brew beers for far less than the 4 bucks a pint, and custom tailor them for what I like...lots of hops and not alot of malt finish. (Can you say crisp bright imperial IPA?) Then my spent grains go to feed my chickens, who lay the best eggs on the planet. Then their composted pooh goes to feed my very happy hop plants. A big circle of sustainability revolving around little 'ol me with a beer in hand.

[Snerdgronk]

Ah ... brew's the ... errr ... local connection.

With Coffee, I drink it, then I piss. The toilet flows into the water supply from whence our fish come. I eat the fish and get a caffeine buzz and top dinner off with a coffee ...

Snerd

[thebeerdoctor]

Hear hear!

[Eric8869]

An $800 expresso machine?????? Ugh - you really need to get over yourself.

[SILVANUS]

Marcello and Fellini are dead, Anita soon to follow, and the US kids don't even know who they are nor care to read subtitles nor appreciate Nino Rota.

Please tell where where one can find the real "la dolce vita" experience other than the oldest parts of Rome?

[DrDidLittle]

They can close them all, as far as I'm concerned - and I'm not. Starbucks coffee has always been overrated and overpriced.

[Snerdgronk]

Bitter!?

[Jonahson]

Starbucks is pricing themselves out of bussiness. Simple strategy is to offer a greater discount for their drinks to keep in bussiness during hard times.

[nukemind]

Too much to pay for the crowded ambience (Starbucks is always too crowded). I pay .65 cents to get a cup of coffee from an Egyptian guy's joint near Union Square in Manhattan in the morning. Or I go to a local independent coffee joint near where I live on the Upper East Side that charges slightly less and has nice couches, hot girls all the time walking in and out, book readings, and wifi etc. Starbucks just became irrelevant. I mean if they charged like .50 cents for a small cup of joe, I'd be there. And cheaper lattes, again, I'm there. Instead it's all bloody expensive and what's the point of having a zillion stores when most of 'em are so narrow half their clientele who are overweight can barely squeeze in. They need to have fewer locations strategically placed, cheaper products and more space and then they might rebound.

[Snerdgronk]

Speaking of rebound ... 'Deflection' comes to mind.

In Canada many of us get our coffee at Tim Horton's. The coffee is stirred with one of his old hockey sticks. Dark roast is made from ground up hockey pucks.

When I first started drinking there, I'd always get a Large "Double-Double" - two cream, two sugar. They put the condiments into the coffee for you .... Canada is a more service oriented economy.

Anywayz, one day I decided to to get an extra large but didn't know whether the "Double-Double" represented actual condiments volumes regardless of size, or if it represented a ratio, portioned to size. So I asked.

They told me the "Double-Double" referred to preferred taste and it was all handled automatically. Without much thought I responded, "So it's Double-Double, No toil. No trouble ..."

Who'd a thought Grade 9 Macbeth woulda come in handy at a Tim Horton's

Snerd

[Bademus]

Howard Schultz is a jerk and I have no sympathy for him. He sold Seattle's 40 year old NBA franchise to an out of town owner for a large profit after owning it for only a few years. So we loose our team to Oklahoma and he gets a big fat check. I guess the check he was getting after charging $3.50 for a cup of coffee wasn't enough.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Nothing was preventing locals with investments from the 'fans' from acquiring the franchise; the 'fans' just weren't that interested?

....which raises a germain point: What limits the number of franchises POSSIBLE in the basketball league? Shouldn't any restraint to increasing the number of POSS. franchises be illegal under some provision of ANTI-TRUST law. In fact it should be poss. to have multiple teams in any sport in a SINGLE town/city.....

[Snerdgronk]

Sounds quite 'Grizzle' ....

Snerd

[Bademus]

Well I don't feel bad for Howard Schultz. He can use the profit he made by selling Seattle's 40 year old NBA franchise after owning it for a few years. A$$hole.

[chf2go]

When people have to choose between a $4 cup of coffee 3/4 gallon of gas at $4, the gas is going to win.

[Snerdgronk]

It makes short work of smoking while you sip, though ....

Snerd

[Snerdgronk]

One way of changing your carbon footprint, I suppose ...

Snerd

[dahpunkster]

It is a sad day in America for me any way. I love the starbucks experience the one by my house has the nicest baristas, they let me put in my artwork in there sometimes and they just know what i want when I go in the. I hope it doesn't close. It's only been there 2 yrs. It took us forever to get one in this dinky town.I think if they lowered their prices a smidge more people would go there

[DrPaulProteus]

yeah, pretty punk of you, dahpunkster.

i wish they'd all close, for all the independent, local, and frankly better quality coffee places they've forced out of business.

[NTO08]

Not at all...the Walmart of coffee houses gets their a-- handed it to them...
In this declining economy, the death knell to yuppie frivolity...didn't come soon enough.

[mcap56]

I much prefer my local coffee shops (especially the coffe labs in Tarrytown, NY). But....I think there are many things that Starbucks has done very well.....
-Health insurance for employees!!!
-Good corporate citizenship. They pay attention to where the beans come from and the workers that produce them. .
-They never hassle you about sitting in their stores for hours and hours. At some local places, the laptop lingerers are sometimes hassled. (Although, you should buy more than just a small coffee if you spend hours there).
-In many places, when you aren't close to home or work, it's a place you can go and stay, meet people. etc. They are really selling tiny patches of urban and suburban real estate as much as coffee.
-Wifi is free for a couple of hours/day with a card.
Although I prefer DD coffee, check their prices. They are not exactly a brew for the masses. I paid $2.50 for my iced coffee today and it doesn't look like many of the lucky employees have health insurance.

We live in a society where businesses have to grow instead of just prosper. A company could be doing very well with great revenues. But, if they don't GROW from year to year, it's apparently a problem. There are plenty of US companies doing well and making money without substantial growth each year. Without the growth however, it doesn't matter. For wall street, it's better to chop it up and sell off the parts.

[kendra]

Most Barrista's don't get health insurance --only 4 out of 10 Starbucks employees. They're also making minimum wage, don't forget.

When stores in NYC tried to unionize, Howard Shultz spent millions in legal fees to crush them.