If the doldrums of warm weather and al fresco dining bums you out, Starbucks would like to remind you—on this first week of August—that fall is coming. Fare thee well, summer! You’re only 317 days away.
The corporate mega-cephalopod known as Starbucks just sprouted yet another tentacle, this time, by getting into the bakery game.
Starbucks announced last week that it will open a first-of-its-kind “signing store” staffed by employees proficient in American Sign Language. The shop will open in October in Washington, D.C., near Gallaudet University, a prominent private university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. The new location will hire…
McDonald’s and Starbucks are usually duking it out at the top of the list of popular fast-food chains. But in a surprising move, the two companies are joining forces for the sake of the planet. A press release states today that “The NextGen Cup Consortium and Challenge, convened by Closed Loop Partners, announces that…
Starbucks’ health insurance plans have covered gender reassignment surgery since 2012, but earlier this week, the company announced a sweeping new set of benefits for its transgender employees covered by company health insurance. Coverage now includes procedures that were previously deemed cosmetic, including breast…
It might not have been the lame fortune-telling gimmick that caused Starbucks’ recent Crystal Ball Frappuccino to crash and burn (although it probably didn’t help). Newsweek reports that Starbucks is pointing to today’s “healthy” culture as the reason that Frappuccino sales are dropping. After all, who really needs a…
People used to marching into Starbucks to get their regular tall coffee this morning may be surprised that their usual total has changed. Fortune and other outlets are reporting that the chain has raised its prices “for the third time in three years.” Prices for a Starbucks tall have gone up 10 to 20 cents in most…
It may be even harder to get into the swing of things post-long weekend today, especially if you’re a caffeine fan: Starbucks is closing 8,000 stores nationwide to under racal bias training after the incident in which two black men were arrested in a Philadelphia branch. Participating stores will close around 2 or 3…
Ever since the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks last month, the company has been in an all-out p.r. push to bring customers back into the Starbucks fold. The men were arrested because they were waiting on an associate for a business meeting, and had reportedly asked to use the bathroom in the…
I saw a few flowers on the strawberry plants in my backyard today and it made me so anxious to taste the first ripe berries of the summer—provided the rabbits/birds/my dog don’t get to them first. No matter what kind of berries you get your hands on, I bet they’ll taste great in this Smitten Kitchen berry-buttermilk…
Starbucks has had no shortage of p.r. problems lately, still dealing with the fallout from the baseless arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia branch. So this might not have been the best month for Starbucks to off a beloved sandwich, especially one that was unique in the chain’s lineup.
Starbucks is still digging out of the p.r. nightmare created after an employee at a Philadelphia branch called the police on two black men who arrived early for a meeting there and asked to use the bathroom. CEO Kevin Johnson has been hot on the media circuit doing damage control, and now executive chairman Howard…
Sometimes you read something about the behavior of others and think, thank god, I thought that was just me. The latest iteration: a piece in the Wall Street Journal that asks why people who can use a smartphone app to order ahead would opt to wait in line instead. It’s all anecdotal stuff—the individuals the WSJ spoke…
Thursday, May 3 Update: Since their baseless arrest at a Philadelphia Starbucks, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson met with Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson at his request so that he could make an in-person apology. Yesterday, the Associated Press reports, “the pair settled with the city ‘for a symbolic $1 each and a…
Starbucks’ p.r. machine hasn’t taken such a big hit since the company eliminated its popular holiday cups in 2015, going with boring, basic red. But now after the much-contested arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks earlier this month, the coffee chain is again attempting to right its damaged image.
“Whaddya mean there’s no ice? You mean I gotta drink this coffee hot?!” So goes one of the customers from the “stupid questions” scene in the cult-classic film Clerks. You see, the idea that someone would be flummoxed by drinking coffee cold was preposterous in 1994, when coffee came hot and generally shitty from…
After last Thursday’s arrest of two black men—who were waiting on a business meeting—for “loitering” at a Philadelphia Starbucks resulted in protests and a #BoycottStarbucks campaign, the chain has been on full-on p.r. cleanup duty. CEO Kevin Johnson made the media rounds yesterday from Good, Morning America to NPR…
Millennials, your day may be done. Lest we forget, there’s a whole new burgeoning generation for marketers to freak out over: Generation Z. So twice a year, CNBC offers Piper Jaffray’s Taking Stock With Teens study. The most recent version, which just came out this week, contains some surprising factoids about the…
That “killjoy” lawsuit in California has now come to pass: A judge ruled yesterday that coffee in the state will have to carry a cancer warning label. This is due to the fact that coffee contains acrylamide, a chemical that California lists as “known to cause cancer.” So The Washington Post and other outlets are…
Well, they can’t all be unicorns, but Starbucks might have hit its limit with its latest frappuccino monstrosity. Hoping for another success like that Unicorn Frappuccino, the “Crystal Ball Frappuccino” offered a peach-flavored, green-glittered drink with different-colored “candy gems” tho supposedly tell your…
