In a quarterly guidance call with investors, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said his company expects same-store sales to rise just 1 percent globally for the current quarter. That’s not only the worst quarterly growth for the company in almost nine years, it was far short of the 3 percent growth analysts were expecting.
Starbucks closes about 50 stores a year on an annual basis, so closing 150 is a significant increase. And although the company hasn’t said which specific stores it will shutter, most of the affected stores will be in major metro areas “where increases in wage and occupancy and other regulatory requirements” are making them unprofitable, Johnson said.
The company also announced last month it was changing its policy that only allowed paying customers to use its restrooms. In fact, customers weren’t required to make a purchase at all if they wanted to just hang around the store for hours on end, as long as they weren’t being disruptive.
That policy sounds wonderful in a press release, but the reality is in some urban locations, opening your stores to non-paying customers is basically converting them to homeless shelters. As a story in the Wall Street Journal noted, “A former Starbucks facilities manager who oversaw several urban stores on the East Coast said those cafes had special kits on hand with rubber gloves, tongs and a box that store employees could use to dispose of needles, adding that employees often found small drops of blood splattered across the toilet and walls.”
Social Justice Company Opens Bathrooms but Closes 150 Stores pic.twitter.com/N4pIZh4Cds
— Razor (@hale_razor) June 19, 2018
“In March of 2015, Starbucks launched its ‘Race Together’ program where its billionaire white liberal CEO decided its employees would talk about race in America and try to bring unity over an overpriced crap tasting latte,” Erickson notes. “It has been downhill ever since for Starbucks.” – READ MORE
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