Closings make mocha taste bittersweet

By Jim Stafford

Published: July 9, 2008

I walk into the office on most workday mornings clutching a cup of Starbucks coffee in my hand. When I round the corner that leads to the Business News desk, my friend Ed will look up and say, "oh, you've been to FOURbucks today.”

Yuk it up all you want, Ed.

But I enjoy every cup of 40-weight that the folks at the Starbucks store on Britton Road pour up for me first thing in the morning. And a "grande” — that's a medium for folks like Ed — only costs me two bucks, thank you very much.

It was almost like the Britton Road Starbucks store was built for my convenience. Or maybe it's more like a toll booth where I'm forced to drop $2 every day on the way into the office.

Anyway, I stopped by the Starbucks on Tuesday afternoon and ordered up a little pick-me-up for the long grind until quitting time. As I was waiting for the barista to top off my mocha with some whipped cream, I heard some disturbing news among the chatter between employees.

The Britton Road Starbucks, open less than a year, is closing in August. It's one of 600 Starbucks coffee shops nationwide that the coffee giant is closing in a purge of unprofitable stores. The young people working behind the coffee bar at the Britton Road store told me that a dozen Oklahoma Starbucks have been marked for closing.

It was evident that the employees would mourn the demise of their store, even if they were offered employment at one of the remaining Oklahoma City area Starbucks shops.

"It's sad; I'm going to cry,” said a young woman as she operated the espresso machine. "You guys are all really great to work with.”

The Starbucks media relations office in Seattle did not return my call Tuesday afternoon to confirm the Oklahoma closings and their locations. Starbucks operates 7,200 company-owned stores nationwide and another 4,000 or so licensed shops operated by retailers such as Target stores.

As it turns out, the closing of a dozen Oklahoma City area stores leaves plenty of options for Starbucks coffee addicts like myself.

It's difficult to determine exactly how many stores the company operates in the metro, but an independent Web site called Starbuckseverywhere.net on Tuesday listed 29 company owned stores, plus another 12 that were licensed stores.

Still, the mocha tasted a little bittersweet as I pulled out of the Starbucks parking lot Tuesday knowing that the store's days are numbered and dwindling fast.

I'm a regular, I told them, even if it's usually just a quick pass through the drive-through.

"Everybody who comes here is a regular,” said the Starbucks employee who passed the mocha across the counter to me. "It's like this is a store for regulars. It's part of their routine.”

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