In an internal email from Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz to CEO Jim Donald, Schultz reminisces about Starbucks’ traditions of the past and asks if it’s even about the coffee anymore. He writes:
Clearly we have had to streamline store design to gain efficiencies of scale and to make sure we had the ROI on sales to investment ratios that would satisfy the financial side of our business. However, one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee.
I hope Schultz’s email inspires change for the better, and I know I would definitely like to see baristas scooping beans from bins and using classy old espresso machines. And as long as I’m already talking about Starbucks, does anyone else think the customized shirts are the ugliest things known to man? Wear a drink order around on my shirt? No thanks.
Aw..yay Starbucks!!!
You’ve been up on this journal a ton Matt; very impressed!
You seem most interested in my company lately! It’s true that some of our stores are losing their homey neighborhood feeling, but luckily, many of them still retain that “place where everybody knows your name” concept a la Cheers. It’s unfortunate that a lot of the new employees don’t have the same passion about their jobs as those of us more seasoned baristas do…I know, turnover. But I still love it and hope to someday get to work for corporate where I can make more of a difference and return the company to what it once was.
In answer to your titled question: probably yes
but I don’t think you can successfully maintain that atmosphere in every store when there is one on every corner. Unique isn’t exactly conducive with that concept. Not to say Starbucks doesn’t still sell a good cup of coffee ;)
Matt, I forgot to tell you, I bought one of those t-shirts for your birthday! Surprise!!
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This shirt nonsense is utterly foul. I had to type that.