My wife’s Starbucks is spared

According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report, sixteen local Starbucks shops are getting the axe as part of the astonishing 600-store nationwide rollback by the ubiquitous chain. Ubiquity isn’t what it used to be. The article provides the full list of targeted Gatewayville-area locations.

At first blush, I had thought that my wife’s particular latte shop was slated for termination, but no, false alarm: the Central West End store on the list is located at 9 North Euclid. Apparently, the location at 4656-4658 Maryland Avenue will keep perking right along. Good news for M - and by extension, her husband.

The general response in the P-D post’s comments thread: a venti order of steaming schadenfreude. An acquired taste, to be sure. Those not enjoying it include threatened employees, but according to the above-linked Seattle Times article, the company seems to be making provisions for them:

The closures affect about 12,000 Starbucks employees nationwide. Starbucks has said it will try to find jobs in the company for those workers.

“I’m hearing that apparently they’re going to be able to place us all,” said one Washington barista who didn’t want her name to appear in the paper for fear of losing her job. “I think it would make anybody nervous knowing there are so many of them, but they’ve always come through with what they’re saying.”

Let’s close with a little perspective from Time:

Shutting laggard stores is hardly an unprecedented strategy. When McDonald’s was struggling in late 2002 and early 2003, it announced the closure of nearly 700 stores in order to weed out less-profitable operations and focus on improving returns at existing stores. To drive traffic to those stores, the hamburger heavyweight then buckled down on product development, rolling out new offerings like salads. Starbucks is also kicking up its R&D machine, debuting, among other things, smoothie-style drinks later this month. [...]

And not all U.S. growth has ground to a halt: Starbucks will open between 200 and 250 stores in the U.S. over the next few years in markets where they still aren’t meeting demand.

If the strategy enables Starbucks to weather the current domestic economic downturn and retool for the future, the chain will look wicked smart. Time will tell.

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