[HN Gopher] Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles
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Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 49 points
Date : 2025-09-25 17:02 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.starbucks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.starbucks.com)
| corvad wrote:
| dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45375444
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| is it? or is this the actual source.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Title was: Message from Brian: An Important Update
| sciencesama wrote:
| Dismantle unions as they are dangerous for our profits is the
| message !
| soperj wrote:
| "Each year, we open and close coffeehouses for a variety of
| reasons"
|
| Wonder how many of these are being closed because they've
| unionized?
| hyperbovine wrote:
| _attempted_ to unionize -- they are known for nipping that one
| in the bud. Happened to one of the locations in my town.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Heh, we had one that was very popular for university students
| to work at and they did successfully unionize. The thing with
| university students, though, is that they're not going to be
| around forever... so the store experienced pretty much
| complete staff turnover every few years. This store would
| perpetually end up in weird situations like not being allowed
| to make coffee because the supervisor had a family emergency
| and had to leave. The staff could serve cold drinks and
| snacks but the union regulations required a supervisor to be
| on-site if there was any risk of burns.
|
| None of the people who had done the original push to unionize
| were still around. They had been students, graduated, and
| moved on. Eventually the staff got frustrated enough with
| their own union rules that they successfully voted to un-
| unionize and the store improved a fair bit. Bizarre
| situation.
| Gud wrote:
| Why didn't they just change the rules?
|
| "Having a supervisor around" isn't necessarily a
| requirement from the union.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| Starbucks told them it was because the union
| tonyarkles wrote:
| From what I understand talking to the staff, it was
| because none of the staff (at the time, who weren't part
| of the original unionization push) actually cared enough
| about the union to do all of the union stuff (like going
| through the CBA finely and and renegotiating the rules,
| regular meetings, shop stewards, all of that). They all
| had a mentality of "this is a coffee shop I'm going to
| work at for a year or two, not something that I want to
| put any extra time into beyond the shifts I need to work
| to pay my way through school"
|
| Edit: If I'm remembering right, the thing that finally
| sealed the deal for them was that Starbucks corporate was
| offering better benefits to the entire company than the
| union (which was made up of like 10 people) had
| negotiated for themselves.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| As of this comment, 12,000+ baristas at over 650 stores have
| unionized. The effort continues, and will persist beyond
| Brian Niccol's tenure as CEO (and his $95M pay package).
|
| https://sbworkersunited.org/map/
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Yeah, here, they removed the floor mats, which were intended
| for the comfort of employees standing for long periods, as a
| tripping hazard.
|
| But, strangely, it was only considered a tripping hazard at
| stores that had unionization efforts afoot...
| ugh123 wrote:
| "Second, we're further reducing non-retail headcount and
| expenses. This includes the difficult decision to eliminate
| approximately 900 current non-retail partner roles and close many
| open positions."
|
| What are the non-retail partners?
| mambo_giro wrote:
| It's their term for corporate employees.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Is partner here a way of saying employee but without saying
| employee?
| xrd wrote:
| I was a GAP employee long ago. That was a "good" job because
| I saw how the "Associate Managers" barely made more than me,
| the "Assistant Managers" were stuck at 30, so I spent my
| lunch hours reading computer science textbooks. I mean "good"
| job in that it taught me exactly what I never wanted to do
| long term. I recall they had this management consulting team
| come in with an acronym "GAP ACT" (Greet, Approach, Product
| add-on, Accessorize, Close/cashier (?) and then Thank"). I
| suppose they were right because 30 years later I have not
| forgotten it, but I do recall quitting when they told me to
| take a toothbrush and clean the plastic fronts of the jeans
| racks. What a shitty job, and I bet it is not much better for
| Starbucks employees.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Yeah pretty much. IIRC they give each employee like one share
| of stock each year to justify the language.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Really surprised about the closing of Starbucks Reserve in
| Seattle. That place was always bursting at the seams and must
| have had a major halo effect for the brand. It's hard not to
| associate the closure with its recent unionization.
| YC873498723 wrote:
| No way! I've been there and had the best tasting coffee and
| pizza of my life. Surprisingly good combo. And it was right
| next to the old Living Computer Museum. It was for sure the
| highlight of my trips to Seattle. :(
| shawn_w wrote:
| The museum is also gone for good. Thank Paul Allen's estate
| for not wanting to keep it going or find an organization to
| take it over.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| I absolutely believe that the Reserve location in Seattle was
| busy and can second that those locations had a halo effect for
| the larger brand.
|
| I've only been to the Reserve location in Midtown Manhattan
| once and it was _very different experience_ than your run-of-
| the-mill location. Specifically, I had a drink replaced without
| asking because the barista said it had "died" while I was in
| the (nice, clean, great smelling) restroom. Overall, it was
| just a nice, pleasant experience and I definitely would have
| frequented that location if I was working in that area
| regularly. I wonder if this shop was a union one? That might
| explain why everyone was so pleasant and why it seems to have
| been closed.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| Feel bad for those employees. In the last 10 years I've gotten
| Starbucks maybe twice, both times because we were on the road and
| needed coffee... and it was the only option. A true fall from
| grace; The drinks are either sugar bombs or taste burnt and corp
| loves union busting.
| throwfish3000 wrote:
| They blow it more than half the time when it comes to regular
| drip coffee.
|
| I still remember my first starbucks visit as a 13 y.o. Sitting
| down, having a coffee, not knowing what caffeine was, and
| having the best conversation of my life.
| betaby wrote:
| > taste burnt
|
| It was the case since forever ( ~15 years+ ). Starbucks is not
| a speciality coffee shop. There is nothing wrong with that. One
| has to acknowledge that high volume coffee shops have to rely
| on basically burned beans in order to be consistent with the
| taste.
| esseph wrote:
| This
|
| Over roasted coffee averages the flavor across large harvests
| and sources, and they expect to dump a bunch of sugar in
| there anyway.
| YawningAngel wrote:
| Coffee is inherently not a consistent drink. The only brewing
| methods that don't vary significantly with brewer skill and
| chance are immersion brews, which aren't broadly used in
| modern coffee shops. It's surely better to not burn the beans
| to ash and accept some inconsistency than ruin the drink
| every time
| ecshafer wrote:
| > The drinks are either sugar bombs or taste burnt
|
| You can order exactly as much sugar as you want for their
| drinks. If you order a Cappuccino with milk or a coffee or
| Americano, there isn't any sugar in any of the drinks.
| RyanOD wrote:
| I once saw a publication by a coffee expert (sorry, don't have
| the link) who said the way to go with Starbucks is to order the
| lightest roast as it's always the closest to a proper, less-
| burnt coffee.
|
| I've taken that approach and think it's sound advice.
| jypepin wrote:
| It's always funny to me how they are still insisting on customer
| experience and good coffee house. In the bay area most starbucks
| have become the burger king of coffee shops: housing of drunk
| homeless people
| HnUser12 wrote:
| Bay Area isn't rest of US and Canada. Based on my limited
| experience most of Bay Area looks like that, not just
| Starbucks.
|
| The Starbucks's near me in Canada are fine. If they get rid of
| the long line of mobile order people, they'd be pretty fine.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| I never understood Starbucks. I live in Europe, we have good
| coffee places everywhere. They are cheaper and serve
| significantly better coffee. I can't think of anything I ordered
| from Starbucks that didn't taste artificial.
| ausbah wrote:
| i think it's mostly for american tourists
| morkalork wrote:
| Which is really sad, when I go to Europe I love trying all
| the different types of pastries you can get at the coffee
| shops there. A strudel with an intensely sour filling is not
| something you will find in North America for example.
| quantumwannabe wrote:
| It most definitely is not. The vast majority of customers at
| European Starbucks are locals, not tourists.
| ausbah wrote:
| that is indeed sad
| mothballed wrote:
| The ones in Seattle were solid. Not sure why, but I could never
| order a coffee from any of the other ones again after that, it
| seemed like the rest were fake ripoffs.
|
| I think they basically developed a quality brand then just
| gutted the quality everywhere else to expand and it worked.
| Poomba wrote:
| For me, I just order a drink when my wife stops by one to order
| one. I hardly go out of my way to order it myself. Everything
| from the drinks to the pastries are mediocre
| deadbabe wrote:
| I go to Starbucks for the co-working vibes, not the coffee.
|
| When are small coffee shops going to understand, if you have a
| 1 hour limit on how long I can sit there on my laptop (if you
| even allow laptops), I'm not going to go to your shop. Coffee
| doesn't matter, it's all the same shit.
|
| Starbucks has never cared if I buy one coffee and then sit
| there all day.
| austinallegro wrote:
| Thank God for coffee shops that impose time limits, lest
| patrons visiting for a coffee and a sit-down have to walk on
| by because the hipsters in their bollock-strangling denim,
| plaid shirts and a Crossley turntable tucked under their arm
| are already hogging the place.
|
| Top Tip: Easily avoid said sofa-hogging hipsters. Look for
| the bike rack full of Penny Farthings outside.
|
| Go to a Workday for your 'co-working vibes'. Take your
| Macbook Air and Crossley portable turntables with you as
| well.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| All the other coffee shop patrons.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I don't get it, if you go to a coffee shop for the coffee,
| why wouldn't you just get your coffee and go? You're
| complaining that other people are sitting... because you
| also want to sit? What else are you going to do? Sit and
| scroll through your phone?
| austinallegro wrote:
| As opposed to sitting on an overpriced laptop all day
| taking up space other people might want to use as well as
| costing a business time and money in lost custom so you
| can spend the day treating the coffee shop like rented
| office space?
|
| What about patrons with disabilities? Patrons that might
| want to use the coffee shop to meet someone and talk to
| them and socialise?
|
| If you want to use a coffee shop as a work hub either a)
| go to the office, b) work from home or c) go rent office
| space or visit a work hub.
|
| Some people...
| lawlessone wrote:
| Are you commenting from 2008?
| ecshafer wrote:
| I hate going to independent coffee shops and having people
| hogging tables with laptops. It destroys the vibe of the
| place.
| bombcar wrote:
| The vibe of a coffee shop now just is one guy and a craptop
| hogging a table for four.
| Yeul wrote:
| Okay this may sound weird but Starbucks was the first place
| that allowed customers to plug in their phone and laptop
| chargers and that's what made me go there!
| travisd wrote:
| Starbucks is airport drink/food for me. Being able to order as
| I enter the TSA line and pick it up on the way to the gate is
| unmatched convenience, and the coffee options at airports
| generally aren't great.
| kellyjprice wrote:
| Starbucks raised the bar for coffee in the US. In most cities
| big and small, there's better alternatives now.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_coffee
| nine_zeros wrote:
| I am in America - I genuinely liked some of their flavors, fast
| service, and happy demeanor of baristas. It always felt like a
| familiar nice escape from the grind.
|
| I wrote all that in the past tense because none of the things I
| liked about starbucks is uniformly available any longer.
| gowld wrote:
| It's anything but an escape from the _grind_.
| ecshafer wrote:
| In the US specialty coffee shops may be just as expensive or
| more expensive than Starbucks. Starbucks _doesn 't_ make good
| coffee, however they're main competitors in the US are
| basically Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, or various regional/local
| chains. So they are often better than the competitors, since
| Dunkin Donuts is not as consistent of quality, and McDonalds
| isn't really a cafe (despite being one of the largest coffee
| sellers). A lot of local places also close at like 2 or 3 pm,
| so if I want to grab a coffee at 3 pm, or meet a friend I don't
| have a ton of options.
|
| I don't really like Starbucks, but I feel a need to defend them
| that they _have_ earned their success in ways other than
| marketing.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > In the US specialty coffee shops may be just as expensive
| or more expensive than Starbucks.
|
| That was the case where I live for the longest time.
| Starbucks wasn't great, but it was a pretty big step above
| McDonalds and the others, and the local shops, while great,
| were way more expensive than Starbucks.
|
| But now that's no longer the case, really. Plenty of local,
| really good coffee shops here that are now the similar
| pricing to Starbucks now that Starbucks has been consistently
| jacking up prices. Starbucks has no right to be asking $15+
| for a triple shot 20oz drink when I can get a much better
| tasting one for the same price at the local shop across the
| street.
|
| Where Starbucks still won was availability and consistency.
| They are literally everywhere, open later, and the recipes
| are so formulaic now that I know exactly what I'm getting no
| matter which shop I go to.
|
| They do need to go back down in price though and settle back
| into that happy middle place.
| klik99 wrote:
| I agree the coffee at starbucks isn't great, but I feel the
| coffee at dunkin and mcdonalds are both better than
| starbucks. I like black coffee though, and Starbucks drip or
| americano just isn't good - I see starbucks more as a desert
| place than a coffee place, and judged on that they're good. I
| think more people want sweet milky coffees, and that's fine.
| That plus the environment is a big pull of Starbucks. It's
| not my thing, but I get why people like it
|
| _EDIT_ Also, I 'm pretty sure the better coffee at mcdonalds
| happened after starbucks, IIRC they put a lot of effort into
| improving their offering after starbucks exploded
| o_nate wrote:
| The Starbucks near me doesn't even brew coffee any more.
| They switched to these automatic machines that "brew" a cup
| in about 15 seconds (ie. vending machine quality). Its
| undrinkable now. In future would only order espresso drinks
| or cold brew.
| angmarsbane wrote:
| The closing at 2-3 PM drives me nuts.
| kimfc wrote:
| at least in america I think it's a consumer comfort thing. Like
| no matter where you are you can get close to the exact same
| sugar-coffee-cream-drink-thing at any starbucks on the
| continent, and it's not really about having actually good
| coffee (their drip coffee is actually terrible).
|
| But everywhere Ive lived (rural New England and now Seattle)
| there has always been cheaper better coffee available at local
| shops. It seems that people who like starbucks and people who
| are into coffee are consumer groups with little crossover
| mips_avatar wrote:
| This has changed, it used to be that Starbucks was the only
| decent coffee in most towns. The thing is there's now so many
| coffee enthusiasts who grew up in the third wave of coffee that
| you can easily start and staff a great local coffee shop
| danudey wrote:
| I live in Canada and the main reason I like Starbucks is that
| its consistent. It's not great coffee or great pastries or
| great whatever else, but it's always the same.
|
| We have other chains here, like Blenz, which are franchised
| rather than corporate, and the quality is hit or miss. I went
| to a Blenz location once and got a drink far better than
| anything else I've had in the city, but most of the time I go
| there I get something mediocre and poorly-made.
|
| Meanwhile, every latte I get from a Starbucks comes out of an
| automated espresso machine but it comes out pretty much the
| same every time. The pastries are all pre-packaged and made at
| some industrial kitchen probably not even in the same time
| zone, but, again, they're the same every time. And especially
| when my son was a baby, my wife and I got into the habit of
| going to Starbucks very frequently because it was one of the
| only retail anything that always had changing tables in the
| bathroom, and, if they had gendered washrooms, always had a
| changing table in the men's room as well. Every other place was
| hit or miss, and it didn't take long before I got tired of
| changing my son on (a changing mat on) a filthy bathroom floor.
|
| Back to drinks, though, there are a lot of other small,
| independent cafes around, and smaller chains like Artigiano
| which give you better coffee (or pastries or tea or ...), but
| they're a lot less commonly found.
|
| Now, all that being said, I would kick a (picture of) a puppy
| if I could get a Te & Kaffi location in Vancouver; the instant
| I walked into one for the first time in Iceland it reminded me
| why I originally liked working in a cafe in my twenties - it
| felt cozy, comfortable, and it smelled deliciously of fresh
| coffee. It's a lot rarer to get that here for some reason.
| jzebedee wrote:
| Interestingly, this was the marketing behind Koala Kare's
| rise to a monopoly over the bathroom baby changing station:
|
| > Business owners just couldn't see the use case for changing
| stations. Hilger says he was trying to sell the device to
| "men in their 50s who never changed a diaper in their life."
|
| > A new brochure -- this one depicting a woman on her hands
| and knees changing her baby's diaper on a disgusting bathroom
| floor- did the trick. "We had to make them feel guilty,"
| Hilger says.
|
| https://fortune.com/2014/08/13/koala-baby-changing-station/
| keiferski wrote:
| Starbucks is pretty popular in Europe, even in places with
| better coffee. That's because it's better thought of as a
| combination between energy drinks and dessert, not a competitor
| to third-wave coffee shops or espresso bars. The vast, vast
| majority of their customers are not buying black coffee.
| paxys wrote:
| In the US Starbucks is almost always the cheapest option in the
| area for decent coffee.
| bombcar wrote:
| Upscale gas station coffee has improve tremendously in the
| last ten years
| jayd16 wrote:
| They have passable coffee but I think they actually did a good
| job of curating a good place to simply be.
|
| They served as a pub, in the public house sense, for young
| professionals.
|
| I think covid really derailed that and the vibe never quite
| returned. I'm not sure what people are using for a 'third
| place' (not home or work) these days but Starbucks is out of
| fashion and sometimes generally hostile to customer loitering
| now.
| jorisboris wrote:
| Its not for the coffee
|
| They are not hostile to laptops, and overall they have a well-
| thought out vibe with convenient seating and electricity plugs
| everywhere
| tim333 wrote:
| I used to hang out there a lot due to laptop friendliness and
| the like. There are so many competing places for that now
| though.
| RyanOD wrote:
| It has always seemed to me that Starbucks has one thing going
| for it - consistency.
|
| I used to go into smaller coffee shops and it was a 50/50
| gamble that I was going to get terrible coffee (though more
| recently, I've had better luck). At least with Starbucks I knew
| I was going to get average coffee every single time.
|
| That being said, I make 95% of my coffee at home.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > It has always seemed to me that Starbucks has one thing
| going for it - consistency.
|
| Absolutely. That's why end up going there when I travel and
| just need to get something quick. I may find a better coffee
| shop if I have time, or if I wing it, I may end up with some
| burnt horrible coffee and undercooked sausage (happened
| before) so I'll just opt to pay more to get the consistency.
| At home I just brew my own coffee as well.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I never understood Starbucks
|
| It's the McDonalds of coffee. There are lot of better
| restaurants than McDonalads for sure but a random restaurant
| could also be worse. So McDonalds provides some low common
| denominator consistency. Same with Starbucks, coffee may not be
| the best and sandwiches are so so, but you know what you're
| getting there.
|
| I find myself there when I travel to another city and need to
| grab something on the go. I could sit down and start
| researching local coffee shops if I have time, but if don't, I
| can pop in and out of Starbucks and know exactly what I'll get.
| heymijo wrote:
| Our car culture in the U.S. means drive thrus can capture a
| significant portion of sales. Starbucks/Dunkin/McDonald's do
| that.
|
| It's very rare to find a local coffee shop in the U.S. with a
| drive-thru.
| wk_end wrote:
| Depends on where you are in the US. Here in the PNW it's
| common - including ones where, oddly, the baristas are all
| young women in bikinis.
| Yeul wrote:
| Starbucks was a novelty in the Netherlands of the mid 90s but
| Dutch people are masters in assimilating and adapting foreign
| ideas and there are several competing chains now.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| CEO makes $95 million dollars a year by the way.
| techietim wrote:
| How much should he make?
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Maybe 1/100th of that?
| supertrope wrote:
| Maybe put it to a shareholder vote for approval instead of
| having a board of directors compensation committee rubber
| stamp.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Imagine logging into Gusto etc. and seeing $3,958,333.33 under
| Gross Pay for 10 business days of work.
| brk wrote:
| This corporate word substitution bullshit really needs to die.
| Nobody on the receiving end of this is a "partner". Partner
| implies some amount of equality in things, a voice, a considered
| opinion. The people being cut almost certainly did not want to be
| cut, and I would wager none of them were asked for their input.
|
| Zero "partners" are impacted by this. The people impacted are
| employees.
|
| Also, Starbucks do not operate "coffee houses", they're coffee
| stores at best, or even just "retail locations".
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I have noticed for well over a decade or more, perhaps 20 years
| or longer, really, I'm not sure when it started, but companies
| are reluctant to call people "employees."
|
| Edit: I'm too young for this, but it's along the lines of
| Personnel from the '60s becoming Human Resources in the '70s
| and '80s, and Human Resources from the '90s and '00s now
| becoming People Operations in the '10s and '20s.
|
| I suspect in the '30s it'll change again. Maybe one day there
| will be a culture change towards boring and we'll just call
| people "customers," "employees," and the departments
| responsible for hiring the "Hiring Department."
|
| And people will get mad about that, too, because the HD will be
| responsible for the paperwork required to fire people, too.
| McAlpine5892 wrote:
| This pains me so. Every time I have to hear "individual
| contributor", "leadership", or "the brand" I die a little
| inside.
|
| Please just call me an employee or engineer. As for
| "leadership", I am somewhat convinced that the word
| "management" would lead to a mid-life crisis. Such inflated
| egos. As for "the brand", they are my employer.
|
| This Newspeak has benefits though. Mainly that it hides in
| plain sight the top-down hierarchy of power that exists.
| Despite that fact that some employees are on food stamps
| while others make millions, it _sounds_ like everyone is on
| on somewhat equal footing.
| orsenthil wrote:
| Real Deal here is.
|
| Store Closures:
|
| North America coffeehouse count will decline by about 1% in
| fiscal year 2025 Will end with nearly 18,300 total Starbucks
| locations (company operated and licensed) across US and Canada
|
| Staff Reductions:
|
| Approximately 900 non-retail partner roles eliminated Additional
| open non-retail positions closed Store employees (partners) at
| closing locations will be offered transfers where possible, or
| severance packages if transfers aren't available
|
| Who's affected:
|
| Non-retail partners (corporate/support roles) - notified Friday
| morning Retail partners at closing coffeehouses - notified during
| the week of the announcement
| orsenthil wrote:
| TLDR
|
| Starbucks is closing about 1% of its North American stores due to
| poor performance or unsuitable locations. The company is
| eliminating approximately 900 corporate/office jobs and closing
| many open positions in support roles. Store employees at closing
| locations will be offered transfers to other stores when
| possible, or severance packages if no transfers are available.
| sota_pop wrote:
| Weren't they just celebrating record profits and patting
| themselves on the back about the profitability of their clever
| new giftcard/digital payments program a couple of years ago?
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