Some years ago, when my mother was still around, my three sisters took her out for a day on the town - shopping, lunch, and so on. Their first stop was at a Starbucks. My three sisters went through first, ordering typically fancy Starbucks coffees with mocha sprinkles, caviar, truffles, and whatever else that expensive chain could put on a cup of java. When my Mom, a child of the Great Depression, finally got to the counter, she asked plaintively, "Can I just get a cup of black coffee?"
She did - but then my sister let slip the receipt, and when my frugal Mom saw the price for what Starbucks passed off as a cup of black coffee, she swore to never set foot in a Starbucks again - and she never did. Dad's first self-appointed task every morning was to brew a pot of Folger's, and that remained their habit for the rest of their lives, sans Starbucks.
I don't know if it's because of the prices or not, but now it seems Starbucks is closing some stores.
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol announced Thursday that the coffee giant will close underperforming stores in the U.S., cut 900 non-retail partner roles and freeze many open positions as part of its ongoing turnaround strategy.
Niccol said in a letter to employees that during a review of Starbucks’ North America coffeehouse portfolio, the company identified locations that were "unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect" or where it does not see a "path to financial performance."
The company opens and closes coffeehouses every year for various reasons, including financial performance and lease expirations, but Niccol said that "this is a more significant action" that will impact a larger swath of employees and customers.
Apparently, the company is also opening stores. Granted, these days it seems one can't swing a cat by the tail without hitting a Starbucks. Even here in the Great Land, in the bigger towns like Wasilla, there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner. There's one in our grocery store. There's one in the other grocery store. There's one on the Parks Highway in the middle of town. In cities in the lower 48, I expect that's even more the case.
Maybe the market's oversaturated?
Niccol didn't disclose how many locations would be impacted, but said employees at the affected stores will be notified this week. Starbucks also plans to inform employees whose roles are being eliminated on Friday.
Niccol said the company has already opened numerous locations over the past year as he launched an aggressive "Back to Starbucks" strategy to help the company reverse its declining traffic and effectively compete in the highly saturated market, which means the company-operated store count in North America will only decline by about 1% in fiscal year 2025.
Hardly a catastrophe for Starbucks, then.
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Personally, I don't get the whole fancy-coffee craze. But then, I've never drank coffee at all. Yes, I know; not even in my time in the Army. The Army runs on diesel fuel and coffee, and even then, I never partook. But plenty of people do, and it looks like, despite some retrenching, they'll still be able to get a Starbucks double-chocolate latte mocha with spotted-owl sprinkles, or whatever other odd things one can stick in a cup of Joe.
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