Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles • Hacker News Board

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#111

Post by o_nate » Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #54

DarkNova6 wrote: post #19

I never understood Starbucks. I live in Europe, we have good coffee places everywhere. They are cheaper and serve significantly better coffee. I can't think of anything I ordered from Starbucks that didn't taste artificial.

They have passable coffee but I think they actually did a good job of curating a good place to simply be. They served as a pub, in the public house sense, for young professionals. I think covid really derailed that and the vibe never quite returned. I'm not sure what people are using for a 'third place' (not home or work) these days but Starbucks is out of fashion and sometimes generally hostile to customer loitering…

Two of the three Starbucks locations in my home town removed all of the seating. Across the street from one of them, an independent coffee shop opened up with lots of seating. Whenever I walk by the Starbucks is empty and there are a lot of people inside the independent shop. I have to wonder about their strategy.

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#112

Post by mint5 » Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #53

ecshafer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US specialty coffee shops may be just as expensive or more expensive than Starbucks. Starbucks doesn't make good coffee, however they're main competitors in the US are basically Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, or various regional/local chains. So they are often better than the competitors, since Dunkin Donuts is not as consistent of quality, and McDonalds isn't really a cafe (despite being one of the largest coffee…

> In the US specialty coffee shops may be just as expensive or more expensive than Starbucks. That was the case where I live for the longest time. Starbucks wasn't great, but it was a pretty big step above McDonalds and the others, and the local shops, while great, were way more expensive than Starbucks. But now that's no longer the case, really. Plenty of local, really good coffee shops here that are now the similar…

> a triple shot 20oz drink

This isn’t something any coffee shop should be serving. It’s like a big gulp 64 ounce soda, it shouldn’t exist.

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#113

Post by verzali » Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 3:50 PM UTC

DarkNova6 wrote: post #19

I never understood Starbucks. I live in Europe, we have good coffee places everywhere. They are cheaper and serve significantly better coffee. I can't think of anything I ordered from Starbucks that didn't taste artificial.

The coffee is bad but they don't complain if I sit there and work for six hours. I usually see the price as paying for that, not the coffee. Though I do prefer good local coffee shops when I find them, but I feel bad about taking up a table for hours without paying much.

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#114

Post by teachrdan » Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

tonyarkles wrote: post #72

Gud wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn’t they just change the rules? “Having a supervisor around” isn’t necessarily a requirement from the union.

From what I understand talking to the staff, it was because none of the staff (at the time, who weren't part of the original unionization push) actually cared enough about the union to do all of the union stuff (like going through the CBA finely and and renegotiating the rules, regular meetings, shop stewards, all of that). They all had a mentality of "this is a coffee shop I'm going to work at for a year or two, not…

> Starbucks corporate was offering better benefits to the entire company than the union (which was made up of like 10 people) had negotiated for themselves.

This was union-busting by Starbucks. The union was more than happy to accept the better benefits, but Starbucks corporate refused to negotiate with them to update their contract. Starbucks was acting in bad faith to undermine the union the workers had organized for themselves.

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#115

Post by esseph » Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

YawningAngel wrote: post #30

betaby wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taste burnt It was the case since forever ( ~15 years+ ). Starbucks is not a speciality coffee shop. There is nothing wrong with that. One has to acknowledge that high volume coffee shops have to rely on basically burned beans in order to be consistent with the taste.

Coffee is inherently not a consistent drink. The only brewing methods that don't vary significantly with brewer skill and chance are immersion brews, which aren't broadly used in modern coffee shops. It's surely better to not burn the beans to ash and accept some inconsistency than ruin the drink every time

Not at all - consistency is what they sell. It's like going to Japan from the US and eating McDonalds. Or eating McDonalds in Mexico. Same food, more or less.

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#116

Post by brailsafe » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 1:18 AM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #93

klik99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the coffee at starbucks isn't great, but I feel the coffee at dunkin and mcdonalds are both better than starbucks. I like black coffee though, and Starbucks drip or americano just isn't good - I see starbucks more as a desert place than a coffee place, and judged on that they're good. I think more people want sweet milky coffees, and that's fine. That plus the environment is a big pull of Starbucks. It's not…

The SB blonde roast is a lot better than Dunkin or McDonalds, in my opinion.

agreed, but it's only ever brewed until like 11am because they've weirdly associated it with the morning

Re: Starbucks: Location closures and elimination of roles

#117

Post by brailsafe » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 1:23 AM UTC

danudey wrote: post #39

DarkNova6 wrote: post #19

I never understood Starbucks. I live in Europe, we have good coffee places everywhere. They are cheaper and serve significantly better coffee. I can't think of anything I ordered from Starbucks that didn't taste artificial.

I live in Canada and the main reason I like Starbucks is that its consistent. It's not great coffee or great pastries or great whatever else, but it's always the same. We have other chains here, like Blenz, which are franchised rather than corporate, and the quality is hit or miss. I went to a Blenz location once and got a drink far better than anything else I've had in the city, but most of the time I go there I get…

Vancouver has a great coffee scene, better than most cities imo in terms of spread of types, prices, availability. A recent one I've been liking lately is Doe Roasters on Hastings, but Moja and JJBean are great too between $3-6 CAD for good filter coffee, presumably a bit more for espresso-based drinks.