Today Starbucks released its full list of the 600 stores expected to close by March 2009 (P-I story here). While independent coffee shops are celebrating everywhere, fully-branded daily customers are shaking their fists.
 Christopher Furlong/Getty Images |
First the breakfast sandwiches and now this?
Then Starbucks announced it's closing 19 stores in Washington state.
Yea, only 19.
This means Starbucks motherland, Washington, will still have 388 company-operated stores and 247 retail fronts (basically, the crappy Starbucks inside Safeway).
Most of the closing stores are in the city, which means loyal customers will have to walk two blocks instead of one to get their coffee branding.
Although Washington state patriotism will undoubtedly sink, as the state flag, a naked mermaid, will no longer light 19 street corners in Seattle.
The states that took the biggest hits are Texas with 57, Florida with 59, New York with 39 and California hit the jackpot with 88. (Click here for full list of stores)
Mario Tama/Getty Images. Howard Shultz speaks at the opening of a shrine in New York in April 2008. The pictured Starbucks is a replica of the cramped one without seating in Pike Place, also known as the first Starbucks.
Posted by unregistered user at 7/18/08 5:23 p.m.
Sad! I will miss those stores, as I've ordered from several of them many times! Hopefully Starbucks will do better in the next few quarters. I know a lot of people are into the little one of a kind coffee shops right now, but I still love Starbucks. I always know what they have to offer, and what it's supposed to taste like. I also know that they have clean lobbies and bathrooms!