Starbucks has plans to close around 600 stores that don’t perform to their standards. This will eliminate 12,000 full and part time employees. The store closures will happen at the end of the first half of the fiscal year; aka September 2009. Severence costs could be up to $348 million. Only 200 new U.S. stores are set to open in 2009. Better start digging out your best local coffee shops or switch to Peet’s. It might be nice not to see that green Starbucks symbol every block. Kick the expensive habit or get angry?

I can’t believe he hasn’t played on American Television before. UK heartthrob Ed Harcourt will be on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show this evening to promote his new album (well, that is to say his 2006 album that never got released in the States) The Beautiful Lie, which came out on Dovecote Records last Tuesday. Listening to The Beautiful Lie (and his back catalogue as well) it baffles me why he isn’t as huge in North America as he is in Europe. Last March during SXSW I ended up tagging along and filming Ed and his wife Gita as he got a sweet tattoo of one of his first songs, “Sing For My Supper” on his arm in Austin, TX. Enjoy our lil’ mini doc:

ED HARCOURT TO MAKE U.S. TELEVISION DEBUT ON THE TONIGHT SHOW JUNE 6, WEEK OF ‘THE BEAUTIFUL LIE’ RELEASE

LOS ANGELES, May 6, 2008 - Not long since wreaking havoc on Austin, Texas during SXSW, the illustrious Ed Harcourt will return to the States from his native England to perform on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Friday, June 6. Timed perfectly with the release of his fourth full-length album, THE BEAUTIFUL LIE, due June 3 on Dovecote Records, Harcourt will celebrate the arrival of this much-awaited LP with a national television debut.

The Mercury Prize-nominated Harcourt has been keeping extraordinarily busy on tour with the Gutter Twins overseas, where he has been joining Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan and co. on stage following his own opening set. “Ed Harcourt’s songs are as close to cabaret tunes and 1960s pop as they are to current rock,” recently noted the NEW YORK TIMES while UNDER THE RADAR hailed ‘The Beautiful Lie’ as “his best work to date.” The WALL STREET JOURNAL was on hand for one of his acclaimed Austin performances, calling Harcourt, “a gifted songwriter in the mold of Karl Wallinger and XTC’s Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding” adding, “and thus a descendant of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.”

Lead radio single, “Revolution in the Heart,” mimics Harcourt’s larger-than-life personality, brimming with his exquisite piano playing, booming delivery, thunderous rhythms and bursting backup vocals, compliments of The Magic Numbers. The track is currently going for adds at radio, already receiving early support across the country from stations like Starbucks XM Café, KBAC and others.

This visit is a precursor to additional U.S. tour dates this summer, to be announced soon.

One of my favorite over-priced vices is Starbucks coffee which I properly designated as “FourBucks” because my wallet is feeling a little light lately. Their stock is currently being hammered.. badly. Competition from other more accessible outlets like McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts is creating quite a predicament for the corporate money hounds. Locations with a low profit margin are being retrained to be familiar with Starbuck’s “new image” to overcome the competitiveness in the coffee-fix industry. This is to promote students and working class communities like myself shaking in our boots to order a tongue-twisting drink like a Venti Iced Latte, light ice, extra espresso shot, 2 and ½ shots of syrup, with room.

So Starbucks is following the trend of “going green” and getting personal with their customers. I already think it’s creepy when you walk in and they greet you with your name but hey, that’s good customer service. A little too good. The new “Green” campaign includes giving away used coffee grounds for garden compost use, recycled packaging, continuing the “Fair Trade Movement” and encouraging customers to drink out of ceramic mugs if dining in.

An online community for coffee drinkers was the best idea I’ve heard in awhile. A bunch of jacked-up, opinionated and caffeine-filled customers voicing their opions through “My Starbucks Idea”: an interactive site. So get your ten-worded order in your hand and your laptop in the other. Drink your coffee as you chat about coffee with other customers. Brilliant or just plain over-the-top?

Last week I detailed my experience getting run out of Starbucks like a filthy vagrant despite my dedicated years of patronage. I got a response from the corporate office that said they had forwarded my e-mail to the district manager, who would be contacting me soon. Today I received said dispatch:

Daniel~
My name is Cheryl and I am the district manager for Starbucks Coffee Company in the Chico, Red Bluff and Susanville area. I am sorry not to have responded sooner, but did not get your email forwarded to me until my day off. I am currently looking into this and will be addressing it ASAP! Something that concerns me is that for an extended period your drink has been given a derogatory name, I’m ok with that if you call it that but not our partners, it is essentially a no water Iced Americano, which is a menu item just as a triple iced espresso is! I am very sorry for your experience and hope to be able to make it right for you, not only for your last experience but the continued experience! Please feel free to contact me and thank you so much for bringing this to our attention!

AH, VINDICATION! Even better was the fact that in the interim, I had already pinned a far lulzier version of my original e-mail for publication in the weekly edition of the Synthesis, which hit the streets this morning. It is reproduced below for your edification. More updates are sure to follow!!11 Stay tuned…

(more…)

Ah the irony! On the same day that their new earning report showed a 21% drop in quarterly earnings, widely attributed to a drop-off in customers, the Downtown Chico Starbucks, which I’ve been fiercely loyal to for the last five years, if not longer, lost me as a twice-daily customer on account of some stupid ass shit. For your edification, I’ll reproduce here the letter I wrote to Starbucks customer service department:

I’ve been going to the Starbucks in Downtown Chico every day, some times, two or three times a day, for the last five years, if not longer. It truly had become, to borrow the Starbucks parlance, my “third place”. For about the last year I’ve been ordering the exact same drink, every single time: three shots on ice in a venti cup. The baristas usually joke about it being a “ghetto latte” since it is cheaper than getting an iced latte but essentially the same thing once you put some cream in it. However, with all the signage in place saying things like “your drink should be perfect” etc, I really didn’t think it was a big deal. Today however, the manager of the store (who has served me the drink in question dozens of times) informed me that I was “stealing” from Starbucks by putting milk in my drink and made it clear that me and my business were no longer wanted, or needed, all in front of the numerous people waiting in line behind me This is unfortunate in many ways, not the least of which is the fact that, in my job as a writer for local, regional and national print and online publications, I have always made it a habit to talk about how much I love Starbucks, despite the hipness currently associated with corporate bashing. I have defended Starbucks in the face of criticism more times than I can count, but now I wish that I had chosen otherwise. If you want to bill me for all the milk I’ve “stolen” over the last 5 years of patronage my address is above.

Fuck it. Peets is better anyway.

OMG DROP what you’re doing and head on over to…..hahaha, sorry, I can’t do it. I support our locally-owned coffee shops on a daily (sometimes twice-daily) basis. I realize that this doesn’t make me better than anyone who frequents Starbucks, a company who apparently has a conscience and mixes in good with the bad (I hear their employees get great benefits, and with record stores dying I’m glad there are still places to buy a limited selection the next of overly-hyped artist-of-the-minute). I just like supporting my own local tax structure. So therefore, it’s really hard for me to say it. So I’ll just let the Starbucks Home page say it for me:

“On April 8, 2008, Starbucks is introducing Pike Place Roast with coast-to-coast tasting events…”

From Palm Beach post:

The event is more than just free coffee — it’s a coffee tasting, according to Starbucks. Customers will be instructed to smell, then slurp (”by slurping,” the guide for store managers says, “you aerate the coffee by spraying it across your palate, which enables the subtle flavors to reach your nose”), taste, then describe. Describing is like “poetry” and involves aroma, acidity, body and flavor, the guide says.

The event is the latest in the company’s attempt to connect with customers, become less corporate and be more about the coffee.

So on my way to the Naked Lounge or The Upper Crust or Has Beans, I will still stop by the Starbucks and pick up a free 8 oz cup of their new Pike Place Roast, because to not get free coffee is MORE of a crime.

According to the Take part blog, you can also go into Starbucks and request (and then buy) a cup of Fair Trade coffee instead. YEAH, that’s right, stick it to the man…

I say just bring your own jar.