It’s going to be a crazy 3 hours for coffee manics as Starbucks will close all of their stand-alone locations (not including kiosks such as supermarkets, airports, malls, etc.). On February 26, Starbucks will be closing all of its stores at 5:30 - 8:30pm so that the employees — about 135,000 of them — can be retrained. Starbucks spokesperson Valere O’Neil said:

“We will have all new standards for how we create the drinks. They will be trained in creating the perfect shot, steaming the milk, and all the pieces that come together in a drink.
It’s really about ensuring that the customer experience that we provide is the best that it can be”

As some of you may know, Starbucks have been in trouble for the past few months. Nearly 180 Starbucks is already shutting their doors because of a budget crises at Starbucks, in which most of them are closing because of a popular local coffee shop near the closing Starbucks. Overall, some say its because of the raised prices that went in effect last year that rose the price of coffee up 9 cents because of the price of milk.
Some say that they have stopped going to Starbucks because of the “commercializing of the cafe.” When Starbucks started, it was like going to a Cafe Nervosa from the tv-series “Frasier,” it was a place to relax from your daily lives. Now, Starbucks is becoming a shop for music CDs, souvenirs, and food and consumers are upset about it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Business News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.