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Comments

• [1] Robert from NYC July 28, 2008 - 08:52AM

  Awwww, poor babies, Starbucks is closing where will they hang out. Well as as segment on this show just last week pointed out, things change and you must adapt to the changes. I'm old enough to remember the candy store/ ice cream parlor hang-out days and now they're gone. Personally I wish all Starbucks would close, I never use them. I buy my own Porto Rico Co. coffees, grind them myslef and enjoy them at a much lower price than the stuff Starbucks pushes at outrageous prices. Buhbbye Starbucks, buhbbye.

  Maybe ice cream parlors should return to out culture.

  
  
• [2] Gary from Upper Left Side July 28, 2008 - 09:06AM

  Maybe Congress should create a bail-out package for all those people who made poor coffee choices.

  (Perhaps Leonard can ask Speaker Pelosi about that at noon.)

  
  
• [3] jt from Long Island July 28, 2008 - 10:00AM

  Colbert had a great take on it last week:

  http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?episodeId=176907

  
  
• [4] Glenn from Manhattan July 28, 2008 - 10:06AM

  I have tried Starbucks with their debit card.It is simply a big corporate giant with a good consistent product, but no commitment to neighborhoods. (a la Wal-Mart) I did walk in once recently and was about third in line and all the employees were playing with the store computers in some way not paying attention to the customers.

  The store closings will cause a reduction in NYC sales taxes collected, which the City Controller is due to give a report on today.

  
  
• [5] Leshka from UES July 28, 2008 - 10:26AM

  There was a small chain drug store in my neighborhood, that was run by people who liked the area and had good products. Not only was it bought up by Duane Reade, but then a small Starbucks moved in.

  Long live corporations...

  
  
• [6] M from NJ July 28, 2008 - 10:38AM

  Are you surprised?

  Their coffee is way overpriced. (an in this economy?)

  
  
• [7] Robert from NYC July 28, 2008 - 11:06AM

  Let me give my heartfelt expressions of this...

  I DON'T CAAAAAAAAARE!

  Lousy french blend with Italian names and way too high prices. Ciao, mon ami. Toot a loo

  
  
• [8] O from Forest Hills July 28, 2008 - 11:35AM

  I will miss Starbucks, I remember the romantic liasons I would meet my boyfriend at Starbucks and we would sit and talk for hours. Guess we'll have to find another coffee shop.

  Adios Starbucks.

  
  
• [9] chris July 28, 2008 - 11:36AM

  I guess I don't understand why Starbucks would close a store that is popular- like the one in Newark. is the problem that those stores aren't in a hip enough location? is this all about branding and stores acting as advertising (as in union square and astor place)?

  
  
• [10] sbs from new york July 28, 2008 - 11:37AM

  It only opens at 8:00, whereas others open much earlier, obviously, the company couldn't afford to keep this one open, right? If no one was coming to the SB before 8:00, it wasn't the neighborhood that was visiting it was visiting suburban workers who could afford it.

  
  
• [11] World's Toughest Milkman from the_C_train July 28, 2008 - 11:38AM

  Save your money in these tough economic times and make your own. I'm a bit shocked that people are crying about their coffee but not the employees.

  
  
• [12] michael winslow from INWOOD July 28, 2008 - 11:39AM

  Their coffee stinks and over priced.

  See ya!

  
  
• [13] a woman from manhattan July 28, 2008 - 11:39AM

  There was a Starbucks in our neighborhood (138th and b'way) a few years back but it closed. Now we have a place run by neighborhood people, and it caters to the gentrifiers as well as to the people who DIDN'T go to the closed down Starbucks. They have espresso for a dollar, and it's way better than Starbucks, which was nasty, expensive, and an invading presence that didn't benefit our neighborhood. Our new place is owned, run by and employs people from our neighborhood.

  Who need Starbucks! Not us!

  
  
• [14] Robert from NYC July 28, 2008 - 11:39AM

  Contrary to what one of the commentators said about SB being a place for the community to unit, I say it was just as divisive. Just as many folk like me do not go to SB and feel SB to be intrusive in the area and, yes, many old neighborhood shops were closed to be taken over by SB. So as far as it being a place to "unit" the community it's just as divisive.

  
  
• [15] Cynthia from Brooklyn, NY July 28, 2008 - 11:40AM

  Rather than shutting down the single Starbucks in places like Newark, maybe they should consider shutting down one or more of the multiple Starbucks per square city block in NYC.

  
  
• [16] Jess from White Plains, NY July 28, 2008 - 11:41AM

  I'm surprised that no one seems to have mentioned the disproportionate number of minority neighborhoods that are afflicted...Starbucks, for all its corporate structure, has always insisted that it was a company above the fray with some commitment to the community. I'm very disappointed. (And I'm a Seattle-ite and a loyal Starbucks customer.)

  
  
• [17] Megan from NJ July 28, 2008 - 11:44AM

  The Rutgers Newark Starbucks is always packed during the school year. It has been a good thing for the campus, I think.

  
  
• [18] Benita from Greenwich Village July 28, 2008 - 11:44AM

  The property that will be vacated by Starbucks leaving will either remain for rent or be filled by a bank or a drugstore. Even Starbucks is preferable to those.

  
  
• [19] Robert from NYC July 28, 2008 - 11:44AM

  In #14 UNITE not UNIT 2x. Not my day.

  
  
• [20] Severn from Manhattan July 28, 2008 - 11:45AM

  This, unfortunately, is the second phase of small shops being replaced by large chains: when times get rough, the chains will pull out because they have no community ties and because closing the store is merely a line item for them. Big box stores make big-box holes when they leave.

  
  
• [21] Helene Papageorge from Queens July 28, 2008 - 11:45AM

  "What goes around..." Starbucks [Dunkin Donuts to a lesser extent] have put smaller independent coffee houses out-of-biz. It's an arrogant thing to say they are part of the community when Starbucks worked very hard in their very cold corporate way to put smaller mom and pop coffee places--nice places, out of their own communities.

  Starbucks has worked so hard to ruin small neighborhood coffee shops then turns on the community they impacted.

  
  
• [22] O from Forest Hills July 28, 2008 - 11:45AM

  Dunkin Donuts coffee, not for me, I am a tea snob and always appreciated the good tea from Starbucks but it wasn't quality.

  
  
• [23] Jennifer H from Brooklyn July 28, 2008 - 11:46AM

  I don't go there anymore because I can't afford it!

  
  
• [24] Christopher Deignan from Middle Village, Queens July 28, 2008 - 11:47AM

  I've just never gotten the whole Starbucks thing. Yes, the stores themselves are niceish to hang out in but the coffee is really not all that. I will go out of my way to not use Starbucks. I think the customer service is middling at best too...

  
  
• [25] Zak July 28, 2008 - 11:47AM

  As per your last caller, can we PLEASE put a moratorium on life long tri-state area residents speculating on what might or might not be in the Midwest?! Please!

  I'm a native Illinoisian...I swear...we have indoor plumbing, Starbucks, independent coffee shops, etc.

  
  
• [26] O from Forest Hills July 28, 2008 - 11:49AM

  Speaking of coffee, everyone should watch the movie "Caffeine" about a group of people all stories interconnected in an independent coffee shop in London, fantastic movie.

  
  
• [27] victor from bronx, ny July 28, 2008 - 11:49AM

  I'm a recent migrant to NYC from San Francisco. San Francisco is crawling with great independent coffee shops, with better & cheaper coffee than any Bucks offers. Here in NYC, with perhaps the exception of Zabars, I've yet to have a cup of coffee that wasn't reminiscent of dishwater (this includes the inexplicably beloved DDs). Not sure how the business cycle evolved historically here, but if all Starbucks in the city closed I'd be a desperate & despondent caffeine addict.

  
  
• [28] CS July 28, 2008 - 11:49AM

  Newark has dozens of wonderful Brazilian cafés and restaurants up and down Broad Street, serving strong Brazilian cafecinhos. The Starbucks primarily serves out-of-towners and commuters working in the nearby offices and hospitals who prefer chain stores to local mom-and-pop shops. As the Crown Heights caller suggested, the issue here is one of stigma rather than economic viability and range of choice.

  
  
• [29] Zak July 28, 2008 - 12:10PM

  CS--I agree. New Yorkers seem to romanticize really terrible drip coffee from delis.

  
  
• [30] O from Forest Hills July 28, 2008 - 12:14PM

  Romance is what it is all about. What is life without love and romantic ideals to give those few moments of happiness and joy in the dismal reality of this world.

  
  
• [31] gregg burke from NJ July 28, 2008 - 12:27PM

  Newark should look into helping a local start up a coffe house instead of whinging about Starbucks. This is a perfect time to put the money you would give them in tax breaks to build something new and local. Strbucks does not care about your community. Get over it.

  
  
• [32] a woman from manhattan July 28, 2008 - 01:47PM

  Yes, Newark should be helping people start their own coffee places. I agree. They should be encouraging people to develop their own neighborhoods.