Poor Starbucks!  Apparently, closing for 3 hours to retrain employees a few months ago didn’t help.

Starbucks Corp. has announced it’s closing 600 underperforming stores in the United States.

The Seattle-based premium coffee company also announced it expects to open fewer than 200 new company-operated stores in the United States in fiscal 2009.

The company says it will try to place workers from those stores in other existing stores, but it’s just coffee and tips.  We know most of those people will lose their jobs.

I have to laugh at Starbucks as a whole.  You saturated the market, serving poor quality products and tricking everyone into thinking they were heaven.  You also made us think that $7.00 for a latte is not a bad price although I can get two gallons of gas for the same price.  You fought the morning rush hour with bad service and topped off our drinks with more foam and less drink.

In 2000, I worked in a B&N that had a cafe “serving Starbucks coffee.”  I’m sure you’ve seen their logo in the window of you local B&N/cafe.  Well, the cafe did so good that Starbucks actually came in and built a free standing store of their own next door, less than 20 feet across the road.  B&N had never put it in their contracts that Starbucks couldn’t open up a store within so many feet of their own cafes, so how embarrassing for both companies!

I say good riddance!  Now maybe the independent coffee sellers with good service, good products, and better prices can get back to business!