Starbucks Closing All Stores for 3 Hours

All U.S. Starbucks Stores Closing for 3 Hours February 26th from 5:30pm Local Time

Facing up to the reality that point-and-click machines may have resulted in a less-well-trained barista workforce, Starbucks has announced that it will be closing ALL stores in the U.S. for three hours on February 26th from 5:30pm local time to allow for three hours of refresher-training for staff. The stores will reopen at 8:30pm.

The removal of the Starbucks' caffeine fix from loyal customers is necessary to stave off increasing competition, even from McDonald's which is preparing to launch its own specialty coffee shops under the brand name of "McCafe". Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz, in announcing the surprising all-store closing stated that the refresher for all 135,000 U.S. employees is a push to "renew its focus on the customer".

My recommendation for Starbucks is to throw away all the dial-up point-and-click espresso machines and retrain all staff what it really takes to make a good espresso shot. Of course you know how to do that already by havning studied the extensive online-training in making espresso coffee drinks that I have provided here at EspressoCoffeeSnobs.com.

Starbucks Moving to Two Percent Milk

The CNN article linked to above doesn't explain what's behind Starbucks' move to 2% fat milk as its standard - what kind of journalism is that? Oh, sorry, it's not journalism; it's "reporting". Anyhow, in this piece I wrote way back in February, The Right Milk for Coffee Drinks, I shared with you my thoughts on the right stuff when it comes to milk. Based on my experience with New Zealand's coffee landscape, I mentioned that milk that is low fat/no fat and high in calcium and protein makes the best milk foam for espresso drinks and imparts the best flavor. In New Zealand there are even specific brands of milk sold for making espresso drinks. One of the things that has always put me off about Starbucks is the lingering bad taste left in my mouth by their drinks. To me it's that the milk is too high in fat and typically heated to the point where it is starting to scald. Anyhow, perhaps this move to 2% fat milk is an indication that Starbucks is not beyond learning from others.

P.S. Since making the post, I came across another piece on the move to 2%: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7007522170. It seems the move comes from "customer feedback" which is no doubt motivated more by diet than taste.

Starbuck's Losing Its Soul

In February the former CEO of Starbuck's circulated an internal memo questioning whether or not Starbuck's is losing its soul.

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.

What soul is there when coffee is made with dial-up espresso machines and automated milk steamers? Despite the black aprons of the "master barista" at Starbuck's, there is little art left in the art of making good espresso coffee at Starbucks. But judging from those I work with, it's just as popular as ever. My belief is that it's just that people have never known any better. Experience truly great espresso drinks like you will get at the independent coffee houses in Seattle, or the cafes found the length and breadth of New Zealand, and you will understand how far Starbucks has strayed from its soul and the art of espresso-making in their drive for economies of scale. I'm all for them making a profit, but they could be doing just as good or even better if they had stuck to the art of espresso coffee roasting and brewing. Just look at the syrups and flavors that are thrown at their drinks to meet the demands of many of their customers who obviously mustn't like the taste of their coffee.

Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Recipe

Apparently, the Cinnamon Dolce is currently one of the hottest drinks at Starbucks. Of course, by “hot”, I mean popular. One possible reason is that the cinnamon dolce syrup comes in a sugar-free option which I understand is very popular because we all want to lose the extra pounds we put on throwing back those mild-based coffee drinks. (Lactose, in case you haven’t yet realized, is a form of sugar. Lactose, fructose, sucrose. Get the hint?)

How about the recipe for the Cinnamon Dolce? Well, of course it’s espresso-coffee based, but it’s the syrup that makes the dink. For a small, a.k.a. 12oz Starbucks “tall” drink, it’s a double-shot of espresso, 3 pumps of said cinnamon dolce syrup, and steamed milk, topped off with foam. Sprinkled on top is a mix of sugar crystals and ground cinnamon. I presume if you ask for the “sugar-free’ syrup, you’ll ask to have them hold the sugar topping, but who knows?! It is Starbucks after all, and as I said already, lactose is a sugar, so “hang the expense, and lay it on!”

The idea of sprinkling cinnamon on top of coffee drinks isn’t anything new, by the way. In New Zealand where I hail from, a cappuccino is traditionally served with either cinnamon or chocolate sprinkled on top. Not quite sure where that came from, but I’m suspicious that it might have been introduced by the Dutch who, in a wave of immigration into New Zealand after the Second World War, opened the first “coffee bars” to make a living in their new homeland and laid the groundwork for today’s deeply entrenched coffee culture.

Anyone know if the Dutch sprinkle chocolate or cinnamon on any of their coffee drinks? I’d be interested to know.

Indian Government Wants More Details On Starbucks Retail Plan

The Indian authorities are putting Starbucks through the wringer before they will allow them to open their stores in India, and that despite the fact that Starbucks will have just an 18% stake in the venture. I guess this is the famous Indian bureaucracy in action, and not anything to do with the quality of the Starbucks product? And I guess the whole world is drinking coffee these days. Isn't India the home of tea?

Starbucks = Quantity over Quality

Or so says Sarah Gilbert in this piece at bloggingstocks.com. Writing on Starbucks sales figures for June 2006, Gilbert writes: "It's a long-subscribed-to axiom that you can't have both quality and quantity. And in my opinion, Starbucks' quantity has finally increased to the point that its quality is problematic" and also tells of one Starbucks barista who quit to open their own store when Starbucks moved from mechanical espresso machines to fully-automatic machines. So I'm not the only one who thinks that Starbucks just ain't that great as I wrote in my post about the "Coffee Industrial Complex".

The Coffee Industrial Complex

Time for a rant. I was driving down 7th St. in Long Beach last night and noticed that two independent coffee shops are now Starbucks stores. The area is not my local neighborhood, so I don’t know when ownership changed. Congratulations to Starbucks on two more stores, and congratulations to the previous owners who I presumed got a good price to give up their leases. My sympathies to the locals because in my opinion Starbucks just ain’t that great! If you feel ready to rise up and defend Starbucks, I can understand it. My guess is that most Americans just don’t know any better coffee than Starbucks. Starbucks is the best in their experience simply because most Americans just haven’t had the experience of the superior espresso coffee that you can find in some other countries, or the excellent espresso made at a few independent coffee shops within the U.S.

Of my almost 50 years, I have lived the most-recent 10 of them in the United States, before that I had 4 years in Japan, and the rest in my country of birth, New Zealand. When I was growing up in New Zealand, there wasn’t the sophisticated “café” culture that exists there now. At home it was instant coffee; going out it was filtered coffee. The first coffee shops in New Zealand had been started by the many Dutch immigrants who moved to New Zealand after the Second World War. It was drip filter coffee; a long way to go yet. But the propensity of young New Zealanders to get off the rock and travel and work internationally, a phenomenon known affectionately as “OE” for “overseas experience”, introduced New Zealanders to European coffee standards which they brought back to New Zealand and so the café scene got going. Today thousands upon thousands of cafes in New Zealand serve superbly made espresso coffee drinks as a complement to food and wine not just in the urban centers, but right out to the cow towns as well, not least of them MacFarlane’s Caffe where I once worked. Many cafes have food menus offering light meals made on the premises, wine and beer lists, and waiters/waitresses to serve you.

The United States, meanwhile, has fallen victim to the industrialization and “corporatization” of food and beverage delivery. It was Dwight D. Eisenhower who coined the phrase “Military-Industrial Complex” in a 1961 speech. I don’t know if there’s been a similar phrase coined yet for what has been happening in the food and beverage industry for many years now, but if there hasn’t, I’m about to do it. Call it any of the following: “Food Industrial Complex”, “Beverage Industrial Complex”, or “Coffee Industrial Complex”, but it’s all one and the same thing: large corporations have decided they can make the most money by taking out local independent providers, offering us branded food that is generic from coast to coast. To achieve the greatest economies of scale they need repeatable menus, repeatable training guides, and repeatable floor plans and layouts captured under the umbrella of a brand. Sure Americans must love it because you can see the success of it reflected in the profits of the industrial giants such as Starbucks, but it’s a Faustian bargain; we trade away our feelings of insecurity and the risk of a bad experience by going to a coffee shop or restaurant that’s branded, but in return end up with generic mediocrity.

Footnote: Here are a couple of links on the coffee wars in Japan. As I mentioned, I lived there for 4 years in the early 1990s. At the time I would have given anything for a Starbucks. The best coffee on offer at the time was the “Doutor” chain, whose stores were few and far between. Here’s an article on how Starbucks is being beaten off by Doutor in Japan. And this is a link to a paper written by a student at the prestigious Japanese Sophia University that studies the Starbucks vs Doutor marketing strategies.

I can teach you the one simple step you can take to move your espresso coffee drinks up from mediocre to great!

Caffeinated David Takes On Seattle's Goliath

Here's a story about an Israeli coffee company that is opening stores in the U.S. Can the fact that Starbucks pulled out of Israel in 2003 indicate anything about the chances of success for "Aroma" in the U.S.? I always used to think that Starbucks would not do well in New Zealand, the place of my birth, but each time I return there I seem to see more Starbucks stores that have sprung up, and which appear to be popular with teens. It's a fashion statement I guess, and of course Starbucks in New Zealand has "naturalized" to the extent that they offer the ubiquitous flat white in their New Zealand and Australian stores. But I have to take my hat off to the Israelis for defeating the goliath on their home turf.

Recommended reading: How to make good crema for your coffee drinks?