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Starbucks to close 600 stores in the U.S.

Starbucks Corp. said Tuesday that it has drastically increased the number of stores it plans to close and could eliminate as many as 12,000 full- and part-time positions as a result. The company said it now plans to close 600 company-operated stores in the United States, up from its previous plans to close 100 stores.

Starbucks has high hopes for its new espresso machine

But she's not sure it can. In her opinion, the once-small Seattle coffee company's product is over-roasted and suffers from being mass-produced -- problems no machine can fix. David Schomer, espresso guru and the founder of Espresso Vivace, agrees there's more to good coffee than good technology. "For perfection it is necessary to bring together a perfect blend, perfect equipment, and a very skilled barista," he said. "If any of these broad factors are missing or sub-par, the espresso will suffer accordingly."

Starbucks' Saucy Siren Boobs Are Back!

Is the Starbucks mermaid the new Paris Hilton? As mentioned on Crosscut, the quality of Starbucks' new everyday Pike Place blend is the subject of discussion, but so too is the company's "new" iconic, retro logo. In use for at least a few more weeks as part of Starbucks' effort to reconnect consumers with the chain's funky, regional roots, the logo is a version of the company's original. The big news: the saucy siren's boobs are back!

Life Changes, With a Latte to Go

MICHAEL GATES GILL, who once made about $160,000 a year as an advertising executive and who now earns around $10.50 an hour making coffee at Starbucks, has written a book called How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else,

Starbucks to source coffee from China

Starbucks has been working with coffee farmers in China's southwestern Yunnan province to help them meet sourcing standards and has sent coffee shipments to the United States for testing, Starbucks China President Wang Jinlong said at the Reuters China Century Summit on Tuesday.

Nike will aid overseas workers - OregonLive.com

You know labor conditions in overseas factories are bad when a Fortune 500 company decides it needs to help workers learn how to form a union. Does this action by Nike mean that Starbucks and Microsoft might let its American workers unionize?

Board Accuses Starbucks of Trying to Block Union

The National Labor Relations Board has accused Starbucks of breaking the law 30 times in fighting union activity at four of its coffee shops in Manhattan. Microsoft also was accused of union busting this week.

Starbucks is starstruck

Starbucks is trying to stop an entrepreneur from opening a rival chain called Starstruck in India, effectively beating the coffee company to the punch. The entrepreneur says her concept is totally different from the Starbucks offer. The name is just coincidental, of course.

Starbucks' 'venti' problem

Nice editorial on the problems Starbucks (and others) face in expanding too much, too fast.

Give Me a Double Shot of Starbucks Nostalgia

This article on Howard Schultz is quite interesting. The stock market values growth not fixed revenue - so stocks are essentially overvalued unless they grow into behemoths. Somehow owning a share of a 30,000 chain franchise which generates terrific dividends is uninteresting to investors - I don't quite get it. The effect on our world is well...disgusting to say the least, environmentally destructive certainly.

Starbucks coffee roasted

Ethiopia's coffee growers are creating problems for Starbucks which has an annual turnover of $7.8 billion, not much lower than Ethiopia's gross domestic product. Ethiopian farmers make a pittance on the coffee and Starbucks has refused permission for Ethiopian farmers to trademark their beans.

Starbucks Responds In Kind To Oxfam YouTube Video

Slashdot on Starbuck's corporate irresponsibility. Interesting placement. Well, I say to Starbucks, keep talking ... and when you get tired of digging with that shovel - perhaps you could try paying a living wage.

Anti-business films are the new muckrakers

Starbucks ran out of money after running daily full-page ads in the New York Times for a year about how responsible they are: "Starbucks was one of the companies that turned down interview requests from Nick and Mark Francis when the brothers were shooting their documentary about rampant poverty among Ethiopian coffee growers"

Starbucks Raises Prices on Coffee

Starbucks Corp. said Thursday that it planned to raise prices of its lattes, cappuccinos, drip coffee and other drinks by 5 cents, or an average of 1.9 percent. O'Neil said the company decided to charge more because costs, including fuel and energy, are going up.

Starbucks pulls free iced coffee promotion

File this under tech-novice, though not quite as big a gaff as Liebermann's Web site being 'hacked' when he really just hadn't paid the bills for the domain registration.