Great suggestions. Starbucks needs to stop trying to create a local community and embrace the one that's already there. They should open their doors to local cuisine. Even if it's as simple as finding a relatively local farm to bring in apples or bananas, or partnering with a local charity to raise money. I know they donate proceeds from their bottled water to help AIDs organizations and kids in Africa and stuff, but I've never even heard of the organizations they were promoting. If they want to be local, they should join the locals instead of trying to create what they think is local.

In other news, Howard Schultz doesn't really give a crap what some barista thinks, no matter how well it's publicized.

Do you really think the CEO of Wal-Mart would care if some department manager had something similar published? I doubt it.

Most companies I've worked for unfortunately seem to either be apathetic or ignore really good ideas their employees have.

There are about a billion Starbucks in Ashburn, and it's the suburbs so I really doubt they're going to try the stealth campaign out there since all the teens would probably avoid it. But put one nearby in Dulles Airport and I think people would go there just to avoid having to walk halfway across the airport to get to the Starbucks.

While these are great suggestions, I'm with the others. This will get pushed by the wayside. The real goal of the company at this point seems to be geared toward keeping all the employees busy while the topmost level rakes in cash sitting on their asses.

@dragonfire81: Yep. In other news, Sun Min Kimes was fired today.

For a second there I thought the Barista Brat had outed herself. My guess is that girl is not going to be employed by Schultz and company much longer. That is why the Brat blogs anonymously

Kim has a good suggestion for the drip coffee express line. I was out this morning and stopped at a Starbucks with 3 employees and 1 customer other than myself. I just wanted one small cup of regular coffee. The woman in front of me was ordering at least 10 frozen/latte/shake whatevers all for different people. I waited a minute and then walked out without coffee.

I dunno, maybe the time for overpriced, highfalutin coffee shops has come and gone. It was a nice fad. Kind of like how Blockbuster's time is coming soon.

When Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds is beating out your product at a much lower price point and much speedier service...

@henrygates: Yeah, I've been behind some mass orders before. Usually I can be patient because the people get done ordering, shuffle along, and as soon as I order, the cashier gives me my drip coffee. It's not as if the order gets passed to the barista so I have to wait for the lady buying for 20 people to get out first.

@wagenejm: Sorry I had another thought so I'll post again.

Many times the upper level management has a disconnect from the actual work that is being done. They sit in board meetings and come up with ideas based on some consultant's overpriced study. Most of the ideas don't take into account what is actually required on the ground level for the ideas to actually work.

I'm sure this barista is frustrated with seeing ideas that make sense blown off in favor of hair-brained schemes like pretending not to be Starbucks so they can cash in on the people who hate them.

Good luck staying in business while charging exorbitant prices in recessionary times. Lower your prices! And while you're at it, drop those uppity names like grande & venti and go with small, medium and large.

@pecan 3.14159265: The Starbucks inside the Dulles airport by international arrivals made the single nastiest coffee I *EVER* had in my life, and promptly refused a refund.

It was SUPPOSED to be a chai, but... I don't know what the hell it was they gave me. I know what it wasn't though.

@wagenejm: I find it sad that executives waste tons of money on overpriced consultants when the best consultants are the ones already on the company payroll.

@Preyfar: Well, chai is tea, so if you were expecting coffee...

@calquist:

I came here to say this. That lady is not long for that job.

Even better than a coffee only line would be a coffee only cash only line. I'm getting excited at the very thought. It would never happen as they'd never encourage people not to buy their expensive pastries and sandwiches, but I can dream.

@Saboth: I still don't get the "Dunkin' Donuts is cheaper" argument. Here in NY, the difference in price between a DD latte and a SB latte is negligible. however, if Slate is to be believed and DD coffee actually tastes better, a "Dunkin' Donuts is more delicious" argument would totally fly with me.

is the price difference between comparable products (e.g. medium coffee and medium coffee, not medium black coffee and medium specialty-frappuchino-with-soy-milk) really that big in other areas of the country?

I worked for Starbucks for a few months in 2003, and I laugh with full-bellied schadenfreude at Howard Schultz's self-inflicted misery. It feels so good to say, "I told you so."

So keep on listening to the business majors, corporate America. It's a great idea to take math advice from people who couldn't hack it as engineers.

@dragonfire81: You know it's funny you say this because the same thing happened to me.

I made a few suggestions to my boss about how to track theft and keeping track of inventory. It didn't pass, but when HIS boss has the "same idea" all of a sudden it's a grand idea.

@mizike: cash only line? Really? I find at SB credit cards are much faster as they have the functionality built into the register and I've never had to sign for the transaction since it's below the limit that cc companies require. It takes less time for them to swipe my card and hand me the receipt than is does more me to say "Venti double decaf carmel lowfat Macchiatto, please" (not that I would EVER say that)

@Saboth: I've been to McDonald's a couple times to try a latte and I have been really disappointed each time. (Even considering it was from McDonald's.) The people who work at there are not baristas and it is evident when you get the final product. It is worth the extra thirty cents to me to go somewhere where the employees know what they are doing.

Here's some advice: no one can afford to spend $4 on coffee in the middle of the worst economic meltdown since 1933.

Starbucks profits are dwindling because it's essentially a luxury item and people without jobs and hope don't spend money they don't have on $4 coffee

@pecan 3.14159265: Perhaps, but in this case she was ordering every drink individually, as in transactions, with various starbucks cards, cash, and her own credit card. It was ridiculous.

@henrygates: Oh, and she also had one of the baristas out helping her with the card machine because she couldn't figure it out.

@pecan 3.14159265: All the intelligence Starbucks needs is right within its ranks.

Terrible advice. Think about it: Starbucks is based on the fact that people will buy premium-priced drinks. The whole of the luxury coffee scene that boomed to create Starbucks (And Coffee Bean/Tea Leaf and Peet's and It's A Grind and Caribou etc., etc.) is based on the fact that customers will wait in line for a premium drink.

Imagine how big a bullet in the foot it would be to create an express lane. Since the line moves quicker, it would attract the more surly morning customers, meaning people would ONLY be buying the cheapest drinks available! (Drip.)

Furthermore, in regards to the "Stealth" coffee shops, it should be noted that this is in SEATTLE ONLY. Why? -Because that's Seattle coffee-culture!- But we don't hear that in ANY of the news papers / blogs / articles because that's a true validation of WHY it's being done. Now, at this stage in the game, does it seem highly irrelevant? A day late, a dollar short? Possibly. But for the love of God, they're not moving in to New York City to try this. They're doing it in Seattle. With it's own unique culture built around these things.

This woman comes off as extremely snarky in her comments; a simpler solution would be to just take the initiative and sample things for herself.

I've been working at Starbucks for the past three years, and am about to send in my two weeks. The corporate cutbacks paired with an ignorant district manager (our district went through THREE of them within a period of one year) has created a rather chaotic situation within the district, especially the store that I work in. We used to have about fifteen employees available for shift throughout the week, but now the count is down to not even half of that. To make things worse, the hiring freeze that the DM has initiated months ago is still in effect, meaning that the store has to rely on borrowed partners from other locations. And the store is slated to lose two more workers within the month, a shift supervisor and I, which means that the actual employees working at the store will be down to five. (We currently have three shift supervisors and four baristas at the moment.)

Aside from having to deal with lack of workers, we have lost our deputy store manager and store manager, the former because someone up at the food chain decided that our store doesn't make "enough money" and the latter because she was utterly overworked and underpaid--she was pulling 60+ hour weekly because of shift supervisor shortages in our store while getting only paid for 40 hours because of the same chickenshit shenanigan mentioned for having the DSM. So now the store is run by store managers from two other stores, and one of them happens to be a complete asshole who is trying to change the store policies in favor of his own that is completely contradictory to the policies laid out by the corporation. (He wants to ban smoking within 500 feet radius of the store, which is NOT outlined by corporate policies becuase even though Starbucks stores are smoke-free environment, there is nothing regarding the distance in the corporate policy. He also wants to issue tips to employees every TWO weeks, which is a complete violation of corporate policy stating that tips should be issued weekly and that there should not be any more than a week's worth of tips deposited in the safe at any times.)

And I don't have to mention the whole tomfoolery with the corporation making stores carry more items that have NOTHING to do with coffee. (e.g. - We started carrying GUM DROPS and JELLY BEANS three weeks ago.) Instead of trying to COMPETE with fastfood chains by converting itself into one by stocking the store with complete nonsense and cutting back on services, Starbucks should start DISTINGUISHING itself from them by improving on its original concept and delivering superior services.

But why should I care, anyway? I'll be leaving the place for good within the next few weeks. Good riddance.

@kerrington.steele: I've heard that Dunkin Donuts has, in technical terms, the best damn coffee anywhere. I personally am not a fan of coffee (it tastes like I imagine a tire fire would taste like, although it smells awesome), so I have not been able to determine so for myself.

@pecan 3.14159265: You've never heard of Project (RED)?

@dragonfire81: corporate policy at any large corporation is to obtain position from higher-ups before you so much as think of speaking to the media, and you can bet Fortune ran her post by Starbucks' legal team before they hit the papers. She's not going anywhere.

@pecan 3.14159265: Absolutely. Even the local Dunn Bros. has local events going on Fri and Sat night.

@dragonfire81: I think that it all depends on the situation, the presentation of the idea, or even just the day.

There are instances where all of the circumstances are just right, and managers jump on an idea and run with it. The trick is recognizing those circumstances; if you can do that, then you probably will do well in the business world.

I have a feeling Miss Kim will be fired, no matter how correct she is. Companies don't take to kindly on suggestions going to the press instead of to the company.

Since she's not blowing any whistles, she's not protected by anything legal. Not towing the company line, however, tends to get you canned.

@RobertBaron: As others have pointed out, the $4 coffee is really more of an urban legend. Yes, there are "drinks" on the menu that costs upwards of $4, but so do the similar specialty iced-espresso-syrup-whipped-frozen-swirl concoctions at other coffee places. "Regular" coffee has always been fairly reasonably and competitively price at my local SBs, to within 25cents or so of DD's regular coffee.

I disagree with your premise that Starbucks profits are down due to the fact that they provide a luxury item. It seems to have a lot more to do with heavy competition for market share. They made the mistake of inventing an auto-espresso puller, then hooking America on the product. Now Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, and a whole host of other places can have unskilled people making relatively indistinguishable "specialty" coffees (making the word "specialty" extra ironic.)

@pecan 3.14159265: Great points. Though in most places it will be mighty hard to find local bananas.

I think the express drip coffee idea is fantastic. If I could get in and out of line in less that 1 minute, that would be perfect.

However, they need to start making better drip coffee. I don't understand how they can charge over a buck fifty for that horrible swill they call drip coffee. Isn't the point of a COFFEE HOUSE to serve decent coffee?

If Starbucks can't be bothered to make better coffee than Dunkin' Donuts (which, unfortunately, we don't have in SoCal), then they don't have a reason for existing.

Until they actually have passable coffee, I won't even consider spending my own money there. If somehow they did that AND started express lanes, then they might actually become a worthwhile destination in the morning.

I can just see it now if they had a drip-only express lane. Over-privileged yuppies and soccer-moms with a sense of entitlement will demand their venti Cinnamon Dolce Latte with sugar-free syrup, and will throw a fit and make a scene when told to get in the right line.

@jc364: Good ideas and feedback have always been welcome in all the large companies I've been with. Reaching out to your own company through the media, though, is usually a no-no.

@supercereal: Yeah, especially if it's directed at Howard Schultz. He is very much the egomaniac, and surrounds himself with yes-men to the point that it's affected the entire company culture, from the top down. Even in their regional offices, the ones who stick around are the ones who don't make waves or question their half-baked initiatives.

@ilikemoney: Having worked at Starbucks, and being intimately familiar with the customer base, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you are correct.

where the hell is the iphone app that was going to allow me to order my coffee? starbucks. you cocktease.

@Saboth: If DD could match the ambiance of Starbucks, then perhaps

@zaquon: I too find that hard to believe. Cash is much slower than card. In fact, what would be awesome would be a Starbucks card only line.

No! Starbucks Card Gold line! Yes! Starbucks Card/Coffee only line would make my day!

@ilikemoney: Just keep a magnum under the counter. Problem solved

@djsyndrome: I know Project Red but not the new one they're promoting. And I get they're trying to encourage people to learn more about these places, but I'd also appreciate the local community getting some help too.

@Koinu:

I was ever thus.

Starbucks is better than Tully's, but there are some smaller coffee shops here in Seattle that kick both their asses combined, hands down, blind folded, chain balled, etc... no question about it. So besides all those suggestions this lady makes, how about some stronger tasting coffee as "default"?

You're right about the quality of their drip coffee. The only way it's drinkable is to mask it with milk & other flavorings. True coffee fans find Starsucks to be overroasted, bitter, and usually made from stale beans roasted when the dinosaurs were still alive.@tcolberg:

I see another store closure in their future. Sorry, Sun Min...your store has recently showed up on the shopping block.