Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz admits the java giant's market share has been sipped away by the competition and the company has gotten too big for its britches latte cups. Hearkening back to its origins, when you could smell coffee being roasted and ground in the stores, Pike Place Roast is being introduced nationwide as the new daily brew, to win you back. On CBS this morning, Shultz says he wants his stores to serve "the best cup of coffee in America."
Baristas have been told to throw out any brew that hasn't been served within 30 minutes."We'll be pouring out more coffee than most people serve," Schultz said.
(There's a coupon in today's NY Times for free Wednesday coffee throughout the month of May.) In what sounds like a Grande Mea Culpa, Starbucks has copped to a litany of sins against the consumer:
over-priced joe, baristas who don't know coffee, over-proliferation (16,000 stores and counting...), and their way too racy original logo showing a mermaid with bare breasts....(Yeah, that one was definitely a deal breaker....)
Java-junkies, are you going to give the repentant Starbucks another try?
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Comments (19)
"..Pike Place Roast is being introduced nationwide as the new daily brew..."
Ah, the fresh-ground coffee redolent of Seattle's Fish Market. Incoming!
It's like SOYLENT BROWN.
R.I.P. Charlton Heston
To follow the Prof's comment, you'd have to force it into my cold, dead hands.
Wake me up when they give out the free ice cream again.
I tried a cup of the coffee today when I walked through Bryant Park on the way to work. It is a very well balanced cup of coffee that tastes good. But, it is too balanced, and well, bland. There is nothing about the flavor that makes your tastebuds take notice. Its like eating a Hershey bar...its good chocolate, but its nothing special when you think about it.
I think the coffee is fine. But in New Jersey, we need big comfortable stores where people can sit and have a destination. I actually see people bring their laptops into the stores, a totally geeky thing, but everyone is crammed in there. More seats more sales? But the Borg twenty-something Seattle execu-wonkette says, "Real estate is sooooooo expensive in New Jersey, and those New Jersey people drive around a lot! So lets put fifty tiny stores there, instead on twenty-five big stores! YEA!" None of them have visited a store, or asked a real customer. The company is just too large, and there are no trans-warp conduits. So they turn into McBean, lose their brand, and ask "What went wrong?"
Brinew2,
The GR SB is pretty roomy. The Valley Road SB seems capacious enough. Whole Foolds SB is on the small side but all of these stores seem to be able to accomodate people well enough.
I don't think it would be a good idea to make the SBs much bigger than they already are.
What SB needs to do is lower the prices on it's products and if they do then they will see customers start to come back.
Don't burst Brinew's rant-bubble with inconvenient facts, Mellon.
I saw a funny protest leaflet decrying the loss of the original bare breasted logo (her hair was shorter).
In 1992 Starbucks went one step further toward modesty by removing her navel.
I might try the coffee; however, Starbucks coffee tends to elicit heartburn.
I prefer Beans or trying other local places when I am out of baristaville.
Free coffee, sure...maybe...
Off coffee: stresses the adrenals...
Have you been in the Glen Ridge Starbucks?
Hot, steaming corporate coffee with cold, sterile corporate architecture.
Starbucks is worth $9 billion and was able to succeed because we live in a great capitalist nation. However, as published in the WSJ yesterday, they banned the phrase "Laissez Faire" on their customized products/gift cards. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120752454414093553.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
I will never drink that swill again. The fact that they say they don't allow political labels but have no problem with liberal slogans is evidence that this is just a marketing ploy to attract liberals to buy their coffee.
Most liberals I know favor frequent and vigourous intervention on the part of the central government in the areas of economics, social policy, and the like. It would be hard to think of a policy LESS geared to this view of the role of governmrnt than is "laissez faire".
Is there ANYTHING for which liberals will not be castigated, by some?
I was in the Siena Starbucks today, and it was really very nice. The staff are very personable, they had Roy Orbison on.
Roy Orbison works at the Siena Starbucks? Kewl. That might make me start drinking coffee again let alone that Starbucks burnt pepper swill.
If you stir in enough cinnamon and nutmeg, the house blend is almost drinkable.
The Siena Starbucks is good for people-watching.
I'm sipping my morning SBs Grande 'extra hot' Caramel Macciatto.
It's absoulutely delicious!
One of life's truely sublime experiences, next to 'quitting time'.
I didn't see the coupon.