Starbucks has always been the fast food equivilant of coffee. Burn baby burn.

Treat workers like disposable garbage and steal from them, slave labor is celebrated by Wall Street as Schultz became some kind of folk hero. Revenge is sweet, greedy managers dipping into the tip jar is outright violence, amazingly, the coffee mafia was punished in court for this.
$8 per hour is absurd. Worse, the media would, and still is, portraying Starbucks as some kind of safety net for displaced "white collar" workers, they even offer so called b.s. health insurance and so-called profit sharing. Both are inaccurate lies, it's profitable to fire and prevent workers from any sort of benefits. Yes, serve coffee, live in a cardboard box, and get fired for not smiling.

Sure, there are lots of Starbucks outlets. But it's easy for the discriminating consumer to walk down the street a short way and get a better cup of coffee for less money.

The founder of Starbucks implied that people were stupid enough to pay five bucks for coffee. BTW Starbucks uses prison labor for their supplies. I hope Starbucks chokes on their own coffee.

Starbucks is so....over-franchised, overdone, and overrated. Jesus christ....you can't walk more than two blocks in any direction in any U.S. city and there's another one. Next to McDonald's, Starbucks is the most common franchise out there.

Starbucks is just now trying to break into the central Europe market-without too much luck. Europeans aren't into the big honkin' 16 oz. drip coffee like statesides are. Euros have their own style: Illy, LaVazza, Lamborghini espresso machines that make excellent quality cuppacino and espresso, served in tiny white ceramic cups. At first I missed my massive 16 ounce drip coffee...but no more! Euros do a better job at coffee...big is not better. It's the quality and the vibe

They just got their first Starbucks in Prague. Doesn't seem very busy...don't know how long it will last. Maybe it will close soon too? I'm indifferent to it, never go there, as there are so many great small cafes with their own style, own character....who needs Starbucks?

The workers in Starbucks seem almost robot-nice, or stepford wife nice. It's creepy. It's phony and too forced. Perhaps this is inevitable when you have a massive corporate office like Seattle Starbucks hyper-controlling every single aspect of every little goddamn thing in the store. Yes, that's it. Starbucks, like the rest of "corporate America", sucks. Corporate America, in large, is to blame for the rotten economic, employment, and cultural landscape that we all must deal with nowadays.

Starbucks was not and is not a brutal corporate beast. It expanded too rapidly and diversified too far from its core mission which was to deliver good coffee brewed well. The coffee declined in quality also. Don't forget that they offered health insurance to all their employees which very few chains do. Low wages are a fact of life in the foodservice industry, and Starbucks can't be blamed for being the worst. I stopped patronizing them when the taste of their coffees declined; not for nothing were they called "char-bucks" for over-roasting their beans to give a false sense of depth of flavor.

Setting: Ocean Beach in San Diego is a slice of Californiana of the 60s. It's what remains of that unique mix of bikers, Beach Boys, Hendrix and tattoo shops with some great places to eat and shop. Only one chain store, Rite Aid (which bought Thrifty drug stores, a very CA chain) can be found and it's about a half-mile from the beach. It's where Cameron Crowe spent much of his youth and a part of "Almost Famous" is filmed on Newport Avenue.

Well, in the early 90s Starbucks pulled a Walmart. They insisted on putting a shop on Newport Avenue in the middle of OB's main strip. The community council was outraged and a vigorous anti-Starbucks signature campaign ensued. Still, the owner of the building had the right to lease to whomever he wanted and the store opened with an albeit subtle logo out front. There's still resentment and few self-respecting "O-Betions" patronize it. Now Starbucks is having its woes... and so it goes...

Boycott all Israeli companies.

Starting with Starbucks.

They have an 'outlet' at gitmo for tired torturers.
One in the Green Zone for tired Occupiers and Blackwater filth.

Boycott Starbucks and tell your friends.

ditto Lisa.
adios and gracias.
And there oughta be a law.
How about a 3-store limit?
I am sad tho'--i had a bet they'd put one in a church within the year. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Starbucks offers poor value. Walmart also offers poor value, but not enough people have caught on yet. These type of companies can collapse like a house of cards.

Most of the outsourcing manufacturers are also in trouble long term because they have given their technology to others and don't ever have the equipment to make a capital barrier to competitors. The competitor can just use the same Chinese plant and equipment. Customers have no loyalty because they never know the guys who lose the job if they buy elsewhere.

THE HEADLINE SHOULD BE: ChiChi Coffee Company Goes Down the ChiChiShitter

Bottom Line: It couldn't happen to nicer people. This is only the tip of the iceberg (you remember them - they were large and white and full of stuff called ice and covered in snow. . . )

Who knew that a whole bunch of caffeine freaks could get so worked up about one of their dealers? Usually, they just sit there and vibrate.

I didn't mind them invading Canada until they despoiled the beautiful Italian district on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, BC, upon which time I started my personal boycott of SB. Then they bought out an incredible coffee shop in downtown Victoria, replacing it with their own crap! zNo more Italian pottery cups, and plates. Even as a former Seattle resident, this was too much. GO BROKE, STARBUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Paul in Victoria

Now that I no longer work for them. I don't care. The rot started, when Starbuck's started hiring their Mid management and Store management from outside. If you worked for the company, and then decided to go into management it just wasn't going to happen. But if you'd worked for the Gap, Bed Bath and Beyond (last 2 DM's) Walgreen's ect no problem. Corporate American Rot walked in. As for the hatred here, well as the Title of the Article states...Now I do similar work, and get paid a hell of a lot more. Starbuck's is a cult. It great as long as you just drink their Kool-Aid flavored Fraps. But they'll be bought up and broken up. Howard doesn't care. He just says he does, cause American's believe drivel like that all day long...

I liked the Starbucks cafe type when it first came out. The cafe was cozy with places to sit, chess tables and all around favorable nuances. But when it came to the bill, I asked if that included a couple of danish. Starbucks is way too expensive, yet it seemed to be a nice gathering place. Reminds me of the cafe's of the 60's, but we had poetry readings, and music. Unfortunately, I haven't found a coffee place that can replicate the chocolate chip coffee ice. Lates at McDonalds leaves much to be desired.

Drinking coffee at Starbucks is as cool as eating hamburgers at McDonalds or driving a Hummer.

shakker July 6th, 2008 4:28 pm
Starbucks offers poor value. Walmart also offers poor value, but not enough people have caught on yet. These type of companies can collapse like a house of cards.

That's because the W place abuses employees. Who would advocate a Corprocracy like that, you?

I Was in London U K a couple of years ago. Saw a Starbucks. For the first time, I bought a coffee. Yuk. The worst I have ever had. In the Brisbane General Hospital they had a franchise. It was the ONLY place I could get a coffee. Can't be as bad as London's. Wrong again. It was identical.

Australia, traditionally, is TEA country. But I'll back practically any Coffee House here, outside of a "Starbucks." serves better coffee. Unless you get one serving "Instant."

I don't use "Chains" for anything. Never had a McDonald's, never into a "Kentucky Fried." I object to any company using under aged, underpaid labor. I'll keep putting my mouth and my money where it is going to do the most good, for my country and my health.

tomedgar@halenet.comau

I feel bad for the Starbucks workers. Jobs are hard to come by.

On a note that is more trivial - I walk a lot and there are no municipal bathrooms in New York. (Maybe one or two somewhere). Starbucks has clean restrooms and the employees don't seem to mind if you use the facilities without buying anything. With both Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles announcing that branches are closing, where will New York City residents go to the bathroom? I don't think using the bathrooms violates any kind of boycott, or does it?

Financial woes??

I wonder. Starbucks business plan has always been to saturate a target area with enough stores to force the locals out of business and then close up the redundant Starbucks shops.

As a New Yorker I agree with jclientelle. Sometimes you just have to go and Starbucks (or B&N) is the only place you can go.

But whether or not Starbucks is going through woeful times, the damage is done. This July 4 I visited my mother and noted the disappearance of one of my favorite real cafes. The closing of some of its stores won't bring the independent cafes back.

Screw Starbucks, they have never gotten a nickle from me. What is far more troublng is the growers of hops have switched to planting corn. Hops are now scarce and the price of beer is going up. The small distillers are gonna be in big trouble.

Starbucks, a la Kraft Foods.

Friends don't let friends drink at Starbucks!

I loved Starbucks when they first appeared. I liked the cosy environment. Right away, I understood that I was paying for something more than the coffee, that I was paying to sit in their nice stores on cozy chairs. As their prices rose, the quality atmosphere in the stores slid. Straight-backed chairs instead of sofas. Forget fireplaces, after awhile. Then, gradually, the coffee wasn't all that great.

For many years, I sent into a Starbucks at least once a day, often more than once daily. But then, almost by accident, I stopped at a locally owned, independent coffeeshop and, wow, the coffee tasted better. Much better.

Now, I'll still go into a Starbucks but it is not my preference. It's the coffee, for me.

I invite everyone reading this who likes coffee to find a local coffee shop that still makes each cup of espresso the old fashioned way, aithout the new, automatic machines. The taste of the artisan-brewed cup is way, way better.

And Starbucks drip . . . Starbucks drip is not very good. I make a better cup of coffee at home. Their 'new' drip, Pike Place drip, is marginally better than what they've been serving in recent years, but, still, any locally-owned independent brews a better drip than STarbucks, even with the new Pike Place.

STarbucks lost sight of what made them successful, if you ask me: the taste of the coffee.

I agree with comments that compare drinking a cup of coffee at Starbucks to eating a tasteless burger at McDonald's. when I first started going to STarbucks, what, ten years ago, their coffee was really good. Now, their coffee is mediocre. There is an important difference with the McDona'd burger: it is priced cheaply. The mediocre coffee at STarbucks is priced as a luxury product but it is lousy.

Somehow I managed to resist ever buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I have been unable to find out whether the coffee they sell is shade-grown, (i.e., bird-friendly). But I can't get that info from about most places.

Starbuck's "Mission Statement" states: "Starbucks is committed to a role of environmental leadership in all facets of our business."

"Striving to buy, sell and use environmentally friendly products." Really, what does that mean in concrete terms?

I've even checked out their packages of coffee in the grocery stores: I couldn't find the words "shade-grown" or "bird-friendly."

Google shows one shade-grown coffee available from Starbucks. When a friend took me to a Starbucks last New Year's, I didn't see any "organic shade grown Mexico" on the board.

I drink my coffee at home, thanks.

I can remember when Starbucks was a small quirky coffee store in the claustrophic combustible bowels of the Pike Place Market - then they grewsome. Two steps forward and one step back...

I remember Starbucks too, although not from Seattle. I got their coffee in small restaurants and shops in Portland in the mid-1970's. I loved it. (I still do.) I even had a friend who would ship it to me, when I moved to Dallas in 1978.

But not any more, not for a long time. I try not to go to one whenever possible but currently I don't have a lot of options as there are very few places to buy Fair Trade beans where I now live.

I think of them as the Microsoft of coffee: predatory, overreaching with ever declining quality.

I once worked as a pharmaceutical representative. There, I'm out with it, I worked at the very heart of evil within the evil empire itself. A pharmaceutical rep is nothing more than a over-paid whore, promoting the most vile invention of, and perpetuating the greediest, most heartless, scam ever brought down on the American people; the current US health care system.

What does this have to do with Starbuck's? Not a lot directly, otherthan the rapacious form of Corporate Capitalism that breathes live into these blood-sucking 'business models'.

This kind of capitalism is constantly promoted at every turn by self-serving propaganda and indoctrination of shameless corporations. At meetings, the pharmaceutical company would bring in their idea of an "inspirational" speaker to attempt further brain-washing of its captive audience.

One particular meeting, we were forced to listen to this marketing guru whom Starbucks had hired to help them develop their expansion plans for hyper-homogenation and omnipresence. This Jack-Ass draped himself over the podium like a besotted baboon and droned on, ad nauseum, about his idea of the BHAG, his acronym for his shallow idea and juvenile term: the BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS, GOAL.

When this guy said that it was his BHAG challenge to STARBUCKS to open thousands of stores throughout the country and put a store on nearly every street corner of every major city, I sat thinking why on earth would anyone want that many STARBUCKS?; and what would this eventually do to STARBUCKS reputation?(which at the time was still relatively positive).

I have always thought that business majors weren't too bright on the whole and the MBA is a garbage degree, reserved for those that could not gain admittance to a true graduate level education. It is little wonder that this country is in such a state when these are the so-called "creative thinkers" making so many of the countries decisions regarding allocation of valuable resources. STARBUCKS what a waste!

A few years ago, my small town's community-owned coffee shop/community center was forced out of its 90-year-old building. A number of us protested outside the fancy headquarters of the developer doing the forcing, and we even made it onto the nightly news. The developer came out and met with us protesters, saying that if we stopped protesting he'd assure us that the new owner would be a locally-owned coffee shop, "definitely not Starbucks." When I asked how we could believe him, he pointed at my left hand. "You're not married," he said. "What does that have to do with anything?" I said. He said that when you get married, you have to trust the other person, even though you never can really know what is in their mind. Okay, we'll give up and stop protesting. Not more than a couple of weeks later, after our community-owned coffee shop owner had been forced out, the green Starbucks sign went up. No more poetry nights, open mike night, old-time music and dance, community dinners, or benefit concerts. I never set foot in there again, and learned my lesson.

A few years ago, my small town's community-owned coffee shop/community center was forced out of its 90-year-old building. A number of us protested outside the fancy headquarters of the developer doing the forcing, and we even made it onto the nightly news. The developer came out and met with us protesters, saying that if we stopped protesting he'd assure us that the new owner would be a locally-owned coffee shop, "definitely not Starbucks." When I asked how we could believe him, he pointed at my left hand. "You're not married," he said. "What does that have to do with anything?" I said. He said that when you get married, you have to trust the other person, even though you never can really know what is in their mind. Okay, we'll give up and stop protesting. Not more than a couple of weeks later, after our community-owned coffee shop owner had been forced out, the green Starbucks sign went up. No more poetry nights, open mike night, old-time music and dance, community dinners, or benefit concerts. I never set foot in there again, and learned my lesson.

A few years ago, my small town's community-owned coffee shop/community center was forced out of its 90-year-old building. A number of us protested outside the fancy headquarters of the developer doing the forcing, and we even made it onto the nightly news. The developer came out and met with us protesters, saying that if we stopped protesting he'd assure us that the new owner would be a locally-owned coffee shop, "definitely not Starbucks." When I asked how we could believe him, he pointed at my left hand. "You're not married," he said. "What does that have to do with anything?" I said. He said that when you get married, you have to trust the other person, even though you never can really know what is in their mind. Okay, we'll give up and stop protesting. Not more than a couple of weeks later, after our community-owned coffee shop owner had been forced out, the green Starbucks sign went up. No more poetry nights, open mike night, old-time music and dance, community dinners, or benefit concerts. I never set foot in there again, and learned my lesson.

Any cafe that serves its drinks only in disposable containers deserves to die, die, die.
More, how did such places get licenses from the local authorities for this sort of easily avoidable waste?

Tim Hortons is the only coffee shop I like. It beats the hell out of SB. They are so good OUT OF MY TAX BUCKS WE KEEP A TIM HORTON OPEN IN AFGHANISTAN FOR THE CANADIAN TROOPS.

We have a local coffee shop that is fantastic and I support it with enthusiasm. However, I do travel a lot and I have to say that Starbucks coffee has been consistently good and the help consistently friendly. Many of us have lobbied them to go organic and fair trade and slowly they are beginning to add more of that to their line up.

Honestly, local shops are inconsistent. Many are really good, and some are really bad. I know, I've been to many. Before Starbucks, there were hardly any local coffee shops, now there are tons. Starbucks didn't run them out of business they created a whole new industry.

Point of interest: What will happen to ALL coffee shops when peak Oil finally drives it's head into the shipping system? Coffee beans are grown in TROPICAL climates. That means 1800-2000 miles, minimum, away from the end buyer.

There are already disruptions in Europe due to truckers job actions over fuel prices.

The UK government is telling market chains to stockpile food in the event of oncoming severe shortages.

And soon there will be millions of jittery, irritable 'coffee zombies' just looking for an excuse to vent their rage at anyone who happens to piss them off, all because... coffee... is... no... longer... available.

*snicker*

I prefer to support a couple of my local coffee shops. Starbuck's overreached itself with such a huge expansion.

Organic, fair-trade, http://www.deansbeans.com/--we discovered Deans Beans at a local, organic coffee bar.

I can now feel good about the coffee I drink...

Galen:

Grow hydroponic coffee in local greenhouses. Solar power powers the machinery required for growing. Hydroponics can grow warm loving plants in water culture. You can grow larger crops in smaller space, up to and including trees. The extra expense of indoor growing is mitigated by serious distance cut back/gas savings.

It works for pot!

(remove spaces)
http: //www. verticalfarm. com/

I'd bought the whole Starbucks image/fantasy some years back when I'd moved back to Seattle to make a 2nd attempt at a new start. After a cooking school for the homeless (Fare Start), my second job was prepping at a new Starbucks venture into chichi light dining. They assured me full-time, steady work for $9/hour, rotten pay then, but not as rotten as now. The Hip, Slick & Too Cool company genius who put the 'bistro' together was one of those razors you figure for pleated tshirts and an accurate count of his own body cells to start each day. Cosmically together. He gave the S.S. new meaning for me.
I started in mid-November. Within three weeks, Starbucks management was having collective diarrhea that their glitzy boutique sandwhich shop in sau haute 'Placific Place' urban mall was going to tank, bigtime, in mid-holiday. The numbers weren't crunching; they were dissolving.

Back in Reality, you'd think a collossal fugup like that would go for the big throats first. Not at Starbucks, which had no 'employees', only some cutism like 'Company Crewmembers', eck.
I think the slimiest part was not just that the axe dropped days before Crassmass, but that I wasn't even shown enough respect to tell me I was getting shafted, not even in lying euphemisms.

I just showed for worked one day when the new weekly scheduled had been posted and my hours had been cut from almost 40 to 15! And not a word! What? Did they think a prep cook was too slow to figure he was no longer making a living?

Someone said 'tossing out employees with the rest of the garbage' or such words, and that is how it felt. 'Hey, Partner?
Remember me? I'm a cook, not ballast, right? What? Was it me or the prosciutto?'
Thus ended the dreamy bs image of 'we're all in this together'.
What reptiles.

I'm sorry decent real people are losing their jobs, but Starbucks crumbling from its dreams of empire? Oh, yeaaaaaaah!

i'm with ya, Melinda Vigliotti - go small business.