Starbucks Finally Closing Stores

I always knew insanely expensive coffee was a fad. And having it served to you by brainwashed, extra-happy twenty-something barristas didn’t make this fad any more tolerable. But after years of providing insanely expensive medical coverage to the liquid equivalent of a burger flipper finally caught up to SBux. They are shutting down 600 stores.

From the SeattlePI here:

For a decade it appeared there was no such thing as too many Starbucks for U.S. coffee drinkers, whose willingness to buy its $4 lattes and dark drip brews rationalized a second green-and-white mermaid awning just down the street – and sometimes even a third.

But in a sign that those days are over, Starbucks Corp. announced Tuesday it will close 600 company-operated stores in the next year as the faltering U.S. economy hastened the pain caused by the company’s own rapid expansion.

Starbucks shares have been falling steadily for nearly two years.

Starbucks is closing 19 percent of all U.S. company-operated stores that opened in the last two years.

About 12,000 workers, or 7 percent of Starbucks’ global work force, will be affected by the closings, which are expected to take place between late July and the middle of 2009.

Most employees will be moved to nearby stores. Starbucks estimated $8 million in severance costs.

That line about moving employees to nearby stores is the biggest lie I’ve heard all week. If they combine employees from multiple stores they should hold public singing contests. Call it SBux Idol. The best singers get to keep their job and the others are canned. And severance pay??? No wonder SBUX stock is flat. The company is run by morons.