urbanSTL

Cafe closings hit minority areas

By Barbara Rose and Wailin Wong | Chicago Tribune reporters

July 18, 2008

Starbucks has identified 18 stores in the Chicago area among the 600 nationwide targeted to close through March 2009, including several in minority neighborhoods that had counted on the green-and-white medallion to signal rebirth.



The Seattle-based coffee giant released Wednesday a full list of the 600 stores anticipated to be shut down resulting in the loss of about 12,000 jobs. Employees at those locations have been notified that their outlet will be closing, though specific dates aren't yet known for all of the stores. Starbucks is expecting to close 25 total cafes in Illinois.



The company had already announced it will shut down shops in Country Club Hills and Elmhurst by the end of July.



The closings include stores in largely minority areas in the south suburbs as well as neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West Sides. "Starbucks became symbolic of a community that was changing and in transition," said Earnest Gates, executive director of the Near West Side Community Development Corp. "To take that away, it's a blow to a community."



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ThreeOneFour wrote:As a coffee addict, to me it's more of a big deal in places like Oakville or Washington where there isn't an abundance of locally owned alternatives.



That said, I'm sure locally owned businesses will fill those gaps eventually. Washington still has a SBUX location inside its new Target. Oakville has a small drive-through only coffeehouse, and you can always pick up a java at the BreadCo anyway. So, while these closings are disappointing and surprising, I think their impact is being overblown.

To Starbucks, a Closing; To Newark, a Trauma

Rob Bennett for The New York Times

When Starbucks came to Broad Street in Newark, it was seen by many as a sign of a neighborhood’s potential to grow again.



By KAREEM FAHIM

Published: July 23, 2008

NEWARK — The green aprons, the blond wood, the safari-themed coffee art and the chalkboards. From Chula Vista, Calif., to Bangor, Me., all Starbucks are more or less the same. And that’s how the company wants it.



But every store, as it turns out, is not quite the same. When a Starbucks opened on Broad Street here almost eight years ago, it was not seen as a bland new spigot of a corporate coffeepot, but as a gathering place whose very existence would have seemed impossible a decade before, a symbol of a knocked-down city’s attempts to get up.



A few miles away, in New York City, new Starbucks branches were sometimes greeted with yawns, or even annoyance that the national chain was invading neighborhoods. In Newark, Sharpe James, then the mayor, showed up for the opening.



So when Starbucks announced last week that the Broad Street branch would be among the 600 stores that the coffee company is closing around the country, the reaction here was especially emotional, a mixture of anger, disappointment and frustration.



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