Starnickles
by matt at 9:45 am on July 2nd, 2008 in EconomyI haven’t been by there in a few years, but there is/was an intersection south of Market in San Francisco with a Starbucks on three out of four corners. Since taming all of my other addictions, caffeine is the only one left. As such, I make my own espresso at home, and don’t really mess with Starbucks unless I’m out of town and can’t find anything else.
I pity the poor fools who might have to start crossing the street to get their burnt coffee:
Starbucks Corp. said Tuesday that it will close 600 of the 7,257 coffee shops it operates in the United States over the next year, affecting as many as 12,000 employees.
Starbucks would not disclose which of its Bay Area locations will be closed, saying it wants to notify employees first. Most of the closures will involve fairly new stores, with 70 percent of the cafes being closed having opened since the start of 2006.
This is just unbelievable. They are closing 420 brand new stores, all opened well after it became obvious that the US economy was in for a rough time. I’m sure their shareholders are overjoyed at this news.
George in Indiana wrote:
Call me boring. Call me traditional. But I like a regular cup of coffee (which Starbucks does sell). Does that Organic Sumatra-Peru Blend taste great? Probably. Is it worth four bucks? Maybe once in a while.
And while the puns are potentially endless on this post (Starbuck-less. Falling Starbucks. Better latte, then never), what’s not funny is the fallout from the current economic woes.
Suddenly, there’s competition for those barely above minimum wage fast food, retail, and low-skill factory jobs. And the people competing for those jobs may be folks whose white-collar job is gone, and they need something – anything – to get by.
http://40-year-oldblog.blogspot.com/
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 10:12 am ¶
matt wrote:
>Suddenly, there’s competition for those barely above minimum wage fast food, retail, and low-skill factory jobs.
suddenly?
around here, people who used to make good money regularly take food service and other related jobs.
it’s not funny to them, but it is funny that executives can make such bad decisions and still pull down six figures.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 10:21 am ¶