Brewhaha: Turns out machines can't replace people, Starbucks finds Starbucks, smarting from disappointing second-quarter earnings, says that trying to replace staff with machines was a mistake. "Over the last couple of years, we've actually been removing labor from the stores, I think with the hope that equipment could offset the removal of the labor," said CEO Brian Niccol on the company's …
Starbucks is the Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser of the coffee world:
The way it works is very interesting. When the 'Drink' button is pressed it makes an instant, but highly-detailed, examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism, and then sends tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject's brain, to see what is likely to be well received. However, no one knows quite why it does this, because it then invariably delivers a cup-full of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.1
Subsitute coffee for tea and there you have it.
___________________
1 Yes, I quote a lot from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wanna make somethin' of it?
We spent £250 on a coffee machine, so a bit more than yours, but still worth every penny. I make that as roughly 59 coffees to break even going by Costa or Starbucks base price, ignoring the near-zero ingredient and electricity cost. So it paid for itself in the first 6 months easily. And we don't often drink coffee when we're out - but now we bring a thermos with exactly what coffee we want in it.
Coffee shops are essentially a cost for the unprepared.
Funny story, in the early days of the McCafe here in Oz, Maccas was thoroughly roasted for how bad the coffee really was.
They completely rebuilt the supply chain they used for everything, and properly trained specialist staff as baristas, and wound up making a half decent coffee for a moderately reasonable price.
Starbucks could learn a thing or two from that idea, ie. buy decent coffee and kit and train their staff how to properly do all of it justice, rather than churning out tepid bathwater that vaguely tastes like the washee had a couple of "international roasts" earlier in the day.
>>The best coffee at a motorway services sets a very, very low bar.
Indeed - in such times of famine knowing where the best of a bad lot is to be found is worth much - both in terms of cost and time saved queuing because all the costatards/starbuckistas keep their faith.
As they say "needs must when the devil drives" (or I am driving)
I was somewhat puzzled when I went to a "food" pub in the UK last weekend, and when browsing the "low alcohol" beers on the menu, there was a bitter at 3.3 %.... Speaking for myself, I tend to expect low alcohol beers to be about as strong as "Top Deck" shandy... (showing my age there.)
"And Budweiser in Europe (which Europeans still seem to drink a lot of) is brewed by AB InBev in their factories in Europe for the European market. Your point?"
In the US, they are trying to make it look like it's an import. The tiny print on the label is accurate even though the big print tries to make it appear something else. Besides, it's not that good. I can get a local craft brew that while more expensive, is much better beer which is to me, much better "value".
What makes it worse is that it is bad by design. I don't think any coffee roaster out there is actually incompetent. There's a huge amount of R&D that goes into the flavour profile of chain based coffee.
I watched a documentary about Costa coffee once and they explained this.
Starbucks coffee tastes the way it does because that is the flavour profile and type of bean that most of their customers prefer...oddly. Starbucks is more than capable of producing a high quality cup of coffee, but most people don't like high quality coffee...they tend to prefer a more neutral cup of coffee.
I consider myself fortunate to, in easy walking distance,have a couple of local independent places who roast their own beans and make excellent coffee and at home I have a very nice bean to cup machine for the days I can't get to one of them before I need to be in work,
> Where I live there is a Costa and a Cafe Nero and a load of lovely independents. Why do so many people use Costa et al.
Here in Canada, we also have Tim Hortons. People rave about Timmies, but in the main I find their coffee shops scruffy, filthy and very poorly maintained. At least the Starbucks generally seem to be hygienic.
Our local "Take 5" coffee shop is bright, fresh, uses proper mugs and is independent. The staff are very friendly, and the coffee is very nice.
There is also "Waves" which is OK.
Agreed about the independents. Time past, the hipster thing to do was to find small independent shops that cared about their coffee, and boast about it to other hipsters about their underground "secret".
"At least the Starbucks generally seem to be hygienic."
That's a retail lesson I learned long ago from somebody I respect a lot. He told me that you can have a meh product/shop, but if it's clean and brightly lit, it's perceived as being better by people. The trick is to allocate enough budget to upkeep even if it means needing to trim a few corners when it comes to product.
Same here.
Live near a full on tourist town (great for tourists, shit for locals).
There has to be a least 10 very good coffee shops and 5 fantastic ones.
All are either less expensive or around the same price.
Better atmosphere, better staff, cleaner and less corporate.
And yet people still go to bloody Costa.
McDonald's and Greggs coffee I get, it's cheap and half decent and does the job, but Costa and Starbucks?
My regular coffee shop is expensive, and service is slow. There's cheaper and quicker independent coffee shops on either side of it, and ghastly Starbucks, Costas all around. But I'll happily pay more and wait longer because the coffee they serve is sublime, they have a regularly changing guest roast and a top notch house blend, and they know their coffee.
Greggs is adequate in a dire emergency, but for those who see coffee as a pure commodity, those people will be better suited to Starbucks, McD, Costa - for those people the safe and standardised ambience of these chains and their dull homogenous product is exactly what they're after. In this respect it's no different to all other fields - price is usually important, but even when it isn't most people CHOOSE to buy tat, either knowingly or in wilful ignorance of better options.
Among them all, I simply don't understand the success or existence of Costa. Price-wise it's similar to everything else, but somehow adds on a level of misery in a way I can't fully articulate. If Starbucks coffee is not great, then at least it manages to be somehow reassuring in the ridiculous comfort food way that only a pumpkin-spice latte can really be and their cakes and biscuits ridiculously sized (if over-sweetened), Pret is all about speed and convenience at the cost of joy, Nero makes a stab at doing decent coffee and slightly upmarket food in (varying) comfortable surroundings, but Costa feels like choosing a snack from the supermarket meal deal aisle for twice the price. I suppose it makes sense that their recent big move has been to put branded machines into supermarkets and cut out the middle man (themselves).
"But I'll happily pay more and wait longer because the coffee they serve is sublime"
You are well in the minority of people. I'm a fan of In-N-Out burgers in the US, but the line can often be really long so unless I have the time, I have to go someplace else for a quick nosh. It sucks since it's a chain that's only on the west coast of the US so it's only so often it's an option. I make my own coffee at home to my own secret recipe and wouldn't stand in a queue for anybody else's given a choice. If I just need a morning jump start, the nasty packets in the hotel room will suffice over standing in a queue. The fuel gauge is well under the half-way mark at this point to spend much time idling. (unless commentarding, of course).
Branding. Not only are people more ok with the "familiar", the young especially seem to be vastly more influenced by "hip branding" and social media "influencers". I'm most of us here are familiar with "people watching". Try it sometime on the commuter run if you can and use those carrying coffee mugs as the distinguishing factor and see if you get a general feeling of groupings from the type or brand of coffee container they are holding :-)
"Try it sometime on the commuter run if you can and use those carrying coffee mugs as the distinguishing factor and see if you get a general feeling of groupings from the type or brand of coffee container they are holding :-)"
Oh sure, assign a masters level thesis project. Hehehe.
I'm boring. My insulated coffee container was a freebie from an office mate that visited the first place he had a job and brought back merch for everybody in the rocket engineering lab. The owners of the shop were family friends and he was the "local boy makes good" story by moving away and becoming the lead propulsion engineer at the company. I'll have to see where he is now. He went from the company we worked at to SpaceX briefly (a bad experience as he tells it) to a nice posting at Virgin Orbit until they closed up. I think he's at Rocketdyne now.
Costa is predictable. If you don't know the town you don't know if the independent is coffee nirvana, or a scruffy dump where the staff think that an espresso is just a tiny cup of drip coffee.
Costa's coffee is adequate and always the same, and their sweet things are reasonably priced and not American-sized portions. It's the safe bet.
This is seriously disturbing for Starbucks. It shows that they really don't understand their business at all.
Their coffee is fairly standard fayre, but what they are selling is a premium, personal brand. Removing the servers is going to dilute that brand. Who wants to pay a premium to be served by machines? You might as well get your coffee from the petrol/gas station machine and pay less.
I tried the Blank Coffee at St Paul’s a couple of weeks ago. Never heard of it before. You wouldn’t know that it’s all automated, still people behind the counter, taking orders, moving cups and pressing buttons. I waited outside and could see ‘over the shoulder’ of the counter and realised that even the milk steamer was totally automated.
Nice coffee, nice little environment. Not soulless, unlike Starbucks…
"It shows that they really don't understand their business at all."
Even to a non-coffee drinker such as myself this is the obvious conclusion.
It's one that is all too common:
- What's the nature of your business?
- We sell ProductX
In many cases that's wrong. The business provides a service which sells ProductX. The services is provided by people, not AI or some automated machine. Even if AI or some automated machine provides ProductX the service is provided by people.
"Who wants a "brand" instead of a decent cuppa?"
More than you might think.
If you comb through YouTube or other online learning companies, there are courses on the psychology of branding and marketing.
I sell a service that creates media for the real estate market as one of my businesses. Mainly, that's photos of houses, but I'm not "selling photos". I'm selling my time and expertise to deliver really good marketing media quickly so the estate agent can concentrate on other things such as getting more properties under contract. Estate agents do sell homes, but what they are really doing is providing selling services to the vendor. It's often a very complex process so hiring an expert can be the best way to go about selling/buying a home. When I'm doing product development/prototyping for clients, I'm not selling tangible things even though I'm often delivering physical things to them.
Starbucks is selling water boiling services.
You might as well just go to Royal Farms for a machine made coffee that’s as ‘good’ as Starbucks at half the price.
Noted that Coca-Cola owned Costa is leading in the USA with machines in its Costa Cafe franchise solution.equivalent to a giant Costa Express in the UK.. and little different to the Royal Farms solution.
Most of it is a world away from the 99c drip coffee found in many other gas stations like Cumberland Farms or Wawa.
Who wants to pay a premium to be served by machines
Who wants to pay a premium to be served by performance artists in flat caps, beards and dungarees? Which is what the "independent" alternatives to Starbucks' intrusive I insist on having your name and writing it on your cup regardless of your wishes seem to offer.
If paying a premium to be served by a machine were the only way to avoid either, then I would. Fortunately I live somewhere where a human will serve me an espresso and a pastel de nata for the equivalent of around £1 with the minimum of unnecessary conversation.
“insist on having your name and writing it on your cup regardless of your wishes seem to offer.…”
Thats where you have your memorised phrase ready “aaaah surname Hunt, first name Mike”
Come up with something like that and practice it so it’s second nature, and you’ll be surprised how easily many people fall into the trap.
"Who wants to pay a premium to be served by machines?"
The reality is that the recipe and methodology for a company such as Starbucks is strict and it not much different from something completely made by machine. The illusion is that the drinks are hand-crafted as you can see people doing things behind the counter.
If you go to a restaurant with a chef, there can be a bunch of creativity and variation based on the chef's inspiration and what ingredients he has to hand. For a chain eatery, they have cooks and standardized ingredients that often are coming out of a tin and a supplier that is providing ingredients that are highly defined.
Designers of coffee vending machines forget one crucial detail: the average user is basically a raccoon in business casual.
This means things will be misplaced, touched inappropriately with dirty hands, and stuffed with things they couldn’t find a bin for.
Has the loo run out of bog roll? What better way to give your fingers a smell-makeover than by ramming them into the coffee-vending spout?
Too many receipts in the pockets? Those slots look exactly like they were designed for caked-in till slips.
Nowhere to put that chewed-for-too-long gum? The coin return’s basically a donation tray.
Spilled some ketchup on your hand? Why not wipe it on the cup chute - nobody’s looking.
Empty sugar sachet? Just cram it in the card reader, maybe it’ll sweeten the transaction.
And there’s always one: stirring their coffee with a chewed stir stick, then thoughtfully returning it to the communal pot like they’re doing the planet a favour.
>Unionised staff should not get a better deal.
Why not? They pay money to staff the union, and (in the US) take employment risk to improve their bargaining position in order to get a slightly fairer sliver of pie.
Extending the award to non-union members is a boss class strategy to undermine the union, and in the long run, pay themselves more (and all workers less)
Why not? They pay money to staff the union, and (in the US) take employment risk to improve their bargaining position in order to get a slightly fairer sliver of pie.
Extending the award to non-union members is a boss class strategy to undermine the union, and in the long run, pay themselves more (and all workers less)
This is a slightly funny one that probably comes down to local attitudes. In theory it's correct, but it also risks making unions into cartels that attract resentment from other workers and the general public. My impressions of US unions are founded only on how they're represented in popular culture, but that impression is maybe best represented by Homer Simpson, "I always wanted to be a teamster, so lazy and surly". It's almost certainly deeply inaccurate and also (something that happens in the UK too) generalises from an attitude about one union in a particular sector to all unions. In the end, if you don't fight for everyone you can easily walk into another, much older trap; divide and conquer.
Usually, yes, if you're competent.
The main aims of collective bargaining seem to be
- to make sure everyone is paid the same for as little work as possible, so no-one sees an advantage in working harder and showing up the others.
- to ensure that the union officials rake in as much as possible.
So have you ever been in a union and seen this actually happening? Or is this just the boss-class talking points you are parroting?
Back when I was in a (compulsory) union I too resented the $3 a week. I got overtime, time-and-a-half, and sometimes double-time. I failed to see how they got in the award in the first place.
My kids only get ordinary time. There is no award and no union.
My son was recently working where travel time - half a day - is unpaid. Work is any and all days the weather is OK. Weather days he is stuck out in the field, but not paid at all. He's luck it was unusually good weather, normal weather and he would be below minimum wage for the hours he is occupied by the job. No company clothing, boot allowances etc.
He also thinks unions would rip him off - and he's also never seen one.
The company that directly employs him is not "making a killing" from this, but their customer (who contracts works out) is paying only about 2/3 what would have been paid in the past. It's a race to the bottom that has been won by the bosses, and the workers are now too supine to organise.
OP here. To answer your question, I was in a union as a student, for the cheap beer & snooker tables, but never joined in any of my jobs. I could see that the non-union staff who negotiated their own pay rises had pay and perks at least as good as the union members, usually better. The union wouldn't officially give membership numbers, but unofficially admitted that it was only about 18%, unsurprisingly given the disadvantages.
In a later job the mostly young staff voted against unionising, but after we acquired a unionised company we got unions anyway. The only time one of the older staff signed up as a rep was when he knew his job was being closed, and union reps had better protection against being laid off (not impossible, but difficult enough that they were last on the list). Otherwise we ignored them, they brought nothing obvious to the workplace except obstruction and the chance for the reps to slack off in all-day meetings, expenses paid.
So yes, I've directly experienced this and formed my opinions from that. I have no real idea how the bosses felt, I got the impression that some were union members, most didn't care either.
starbucks after my first taste ages ago.
Sweet, sickly and never really tasted like coffee.
Mind you.. had worse..... one company had a free vending machine dispensing 'coffee' that tasted better after you put a cigarette out in it, let it go cold and then microwaved it back warm'ish.
Now its black coffee made in a french press from freshly ground beans from taylor's number 6 lava roast. or as the PFY says with a generic instant coffee in her hand "god Boris.. you're such a snob"
I'd recommend searching out somewhere that uses or sells coffee from a top roasting house, and I'm afraid Taylor's don't cut it for me. If in the UK, Obadiah beans (roasted in Edinburgh) are widely stocked by proper coffee houses, there's a good number of excellent Dutch roasters (Friedhats comes to mind), some excellent Swedish and Danish roasters who export to the UK and across the EU.
For the UK, the Indy Coffee Guide publishes regional guides of the best coffee shops for not much more than the price of a Starbucks, and will enable you to avoid ghastly US-owned chains.
Grinding and making your own coffee from almost any quality of beans at home is like baking your own bread. No matter how bad it is, it's almost[*] always miles better than anything from a brand, chain or supermarket. Once you get started, THEN you can try to become better at it, more professional and snobbish :-)
* note the caveat. Some people are just useless at making anything :-)
Upvote, but I also used to be in the lava camp and it has its appeal, especially if you need a strong flavour to wake you up. The lighter roasted Lazy Sunday is not the best coffee you'll ever drink, but definitely pleasant enough, has more flavour than just "roast" and is cheap enough for people not deep into their coffee not to blanch at.
Union Coffee is available in most UK supermarket chains now and pretty good if you're not sufficiently keen you're hunting out local roasteries and subscriptions. Currently they have a Brazilian "Bobolink" that is chocolatey and nutty enough to pass as a dark roast for people who're used to that while also tasting really nice. (Union also put their roast date on the packet, ideally you're drinking within about two months, if it's been sitting on the shelf for a year then you're probably better off buying something else.)
Well its the strong flavour and jolt of caffine I'm after
Ideal for morning like this morning when the 'to do' list landed on my desk and its completely different to yesterday's 'to do' list that I've got 1/2 way through programming, leaving me the choice of putting down yesterdays work (with a bunch of notes and tags) and start today's list, or do I just say 'f it' and carry on with yesterdays
Of course tommorrow's list will be different again along with the boss going "Is it done yet?" and the bean counter droning on about the cost of the delays...
Wonder if the PFY would lend me her chainsaw.......
Union are not alone in pulling the shrinkflation trick (you think it’s a 1kg bag but actually it’s 700g), which is annoying but the coffee’s not bad.
Big fan of Divine up in York, reasonably priced and good quality (though all coffee prices seem through the roof recently). Try their ‘darkside’ if you like a darker roast.
https://divinecoffee.co.uk/
As of this week my employer has banished me to the USA for a fortnight. After some experimentation I've managed to get the "cup of joe" style filter coffee maker in the hotel room to make drinkable coffee, although the markings on the jug for a "cup" of coffee are oddly about 2/3 of what I'd expect a cup to be sized as. Also not sure what "donut shop" coffee is supposed to be but there were lots of bags of it on the shelves in Publix.
Coffee from anywhere like Panera, Dunkin etc is effectively a large quantity of brown muddy water that tastes vaguely of coffee - even the dark roast in Panera which is the best I've come across so far out here.
I probably should have packed my french press.
When back in Scotland from Australia, my daughter dragged me into a Starbucks in Paisley [we only have one or two in Perth].
Their coffee without a doubt absolutely tasteless muck. As I sit in my office, the tiny takeaway place round the corner in the middle of a suburban lot of Furniture Shops serves coffee that is light years better.
How an absolutely huge business manages to make so much money selling garbage like that is something I will never understand.
"How an absolutely huge business manages to make so much money selling garbage like that is something I will never understand."
It's the American Way: McDs, KFC, Budweiser, Jack Daniels, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, etc. And that's only some of the more memorable entries from the food&drink (?) category.
"Over the last couple of years, we've actually been removing labor from the stores, I think with the hope that equipment could offset the removal of the labor," said CEO Brian Niccol
The CEO thinks (speculates) that Starbucks hoped new equipment could (might) replace the people they fired?!
What kind of a stupid, baseless, blind-faith 'plan' is that? Why does the CEO not know with certainty what the plan was?!
The entire board should be sacked: the CEO, for being so clueless, and the remainder of the board for being too gutless to fire the CEO.
Or was it all because of the drugs?
But did the vending machines ask for a tip to add insult to injury?
"Or was it all because of the drugs?"
No, it's too much sucking on wax crayons. Look up Niccol's Wiki entry. His background is purely marketing roles for over-priced commodity items ("branded goods"). I'd say he was a shoe-in for what Starbucks is, and wants to be.
"The entire board should be sacked: the CEO, for being so clueless, and the remainder of the board for being too gutless to fire the CEO."
My dear boy, you already know that in a US board structure it isn't the job of the board to hold the CEO to account; They're there solely to earn a few hundred thousand bucks for attending a handful of meetings, and fawning over the CEO's poorly conceived ideas. And looking at Starbucks board, of the eight other directors only one has any possibly relevant sector knowledge.
"Aussies are not fooled by this corporate dish water."
That article made me think about how McD's has varied their menu across the globe. The chips, fish and battered chicken bits can go over ok in most places, but beef and pork won't. A hamburger menu in India isn't the key to franchise success.
Total: 402,000 - 361,000 = 41,000
In store: 248,000 - 201,000 = 47,000
One wonders whether the extra 6,000 added non in-store heads were to the ranks of manglement?
In these parts (AU) most restaurants, take-aways, food court and pubs have espresso machines which depending on the skill of the employee and the beans, the coffee ranges from drinkable to quite good but always light years better than Starbucks' the number of whose stores seemed to have declined here after the GFC.
I suppose Starbuck could convert their stores to a DIY operation. A row of espresso machines, a selection of beans‡, a personal injury release, tap and go. The staff would just clean up the mess and replace the consumables (and arrange the replacement or repair of the vast number of buggered machines†.)
‡ and an increasingly insane variety of "milks" which when added to coffee with the inevitable sweetener is hardly discernible from Milo or Ovaltine.
† having worked in environments with employer supplied machines and beans, the originality of the methods of damaging an espresso machine is bewildering. Placing chocolate (cocoa,cacao) beans in the grinder certainly would have to be my nomination.
"An alternative, that winemakers have been aware of for centuries, is have a good taster (or tasters) and blend appropriately from different sources."
There's also blended whiskeys and teas where a company taster(s) en-devour to keep the taste as consistent as possible. Distillers might source their caskets in a way that always uses wood from a particular forest or region.
There's a place for many approaches. I'm boggin for another run of Glenmorangie Burgandy wood finish. In the meantime, the Glenfiddich standard 12yo is a suitable and consistent friend.
Maybe if you can have a brief chat with the vending machine ... We're still a long way away from being replaced by machines. Unless someone truly develops GAI it's not going to happen. LLMs are currently just feeding off data and producing the most probable response there's little if any original thought or adaptation. They repeat mistakes and can't understand the human context. They don't know when to lie (hallucinate) and when to be rigorous. But ... they are a bloody good tool if you realise the limitations.
Besides I like making a coffee myself. The dumb Costa machines aren't even as good as human served Costas. But like many have said the big chains are too expensive anyway. A Starbucks with a robot serving would have novelty value until it dumps the coffee on your lap for not tipping!
I was thinking more of their automated "restaurants" rather than a stand-alone oblong vending machine on a street corner. We have bank "branches" in the UK that are little more than the opened out floor area of a traditional bank, with "enhanced" ATMs in them. Some are even combined as a "coffee shop" too although I've not been in one yet so don't know if the coffee side of it is staffed or automated. I believe there is at least one human on the banking side too, although they are mostly there to help people use the machines and direct them to phone or online banking for anything the machine can't do.
Coffee from a machine will always have the perception of being lower quality than coffee made by a person.
Therefore the expectation is that you will pay less for it.
Coffee from a machine will also have a high number of issues since the likelihood is that you will be relying on a low paid likely non-coffee shop person to reload and clean that machine. So it is more likely to run out of milk, cups, coffee or be dirty since that low paid person will have a number of other jobs like cleaning the bogs.
"So it is more likely to run out of milk, cups, coffee or be dirty since that low paid person will have a number of other jobs like cleaning the bogs."
Top tip for staff maintaining a coffee machine : A standard toilet brush of 75mm diameter can also be used to clean a coffee machine, it's a perfect fit for the cup-shute, and with bristles all round and some straggly toilet paper still attached it makes quick work of cleaning the cup-filling spout.
"I would like a large coffee, please."
"We don't have small, medium, and large sizes. We use [some stupid names I cannot remember]."
Figure it out already. I am here because I am low on caffeine, and likely irritable. I don't need some inked up, over pierced, college graduate talking down to me about their preferred vernacular for coffee cup sizes.
I haven't been to a Starbucks in years. I will always go to the smaller local mom & pop vendor instead.
*nods* In the unlikely event I - not a regular coffee drinker in the first place - ever end up looking for coffee at Starbucks - I will be in a state where my order consists of:
"... Coffee."
...
"... *Big* coffee."
followed by a zombie stare until I get it.
"What are all those Philosophy, History, and Liberal Arts majors going to do while waiting to secure tenure?"
Get a job as a checkout clerk at a supermarket. Oh, wait.... self-checkout.
Hmm. The job of the future might be cleaning the interiors of robotaxis. It might be a while before that can be automated and scent discriminators can verify there are no background odors still present that might put people off.
Tattoo and piercing technicians. Hair stylists. Cracked phone screen technicians.
Since manufacturing will be a very minor employer, we may wind up with the threat of a service industry being dominant coming true. I knew the whole "knowledge worker" blather wasn't really a thing.... (AI). We'll all be cutting each other's lawn and looking after each other's children.
> Total headcount... 361,000... in-store workers... 201,000
There's their problem (well other than the shit they call coffee) - they have 1.6 members of staff who do not sell coffee for every 2 members of staff who do. Surely it is obvious they need to reduce the back room and management staff to improve profitability. Only those 201k in-store workers are making money for the company.
"Surely it is obvious they need to reduce the back room and management staff to improve profitability."
The ratio is also crazy since it's likely that lots of what those non-productive employees are doing could be automated. Those people are also likely being paid more than somebody in a store, boiling water. Ideally, the position to try an automate is that of the CEO since that's the largest parasitic cost and work down the corporate ladder from there. Of course, installing AI to make very nuanced and subjective decisions isn't going to work. I don't think we will see an AI anytime soon that's in touch with the Hopes, Dreams and Desires of squishy protoplasm. Especially when HDD varies so much from person to person.
American here. I know it's hip and trendy to bash on Starbucks, and it's not entirely undeserved, but I go to my local Starbies on the regular and find the quality to be just fine. Black drip coffee has improved dramatically. It's not sludge anymore.
Secondly, I occasionally visit a 7-11 near my home that has robot coffee drink makers and I have found that for less than half what I pay at Starbies for a fancy drink I get a good coffee drink. I could see a half-dozen of those robots pumping out fancy drinks that rival handmade ones, especially at a lower price point.
Finally, unionizing Starbucks would only lead to decreased quality and higher prices. Besides who want to work as a barista as a career?
"Finally, unionizing Starbucks would only lead to decreased quality and higher prices. Besides who want to work as a barista as a career?"
There isn't as many options for those with multi-color hair and jewelry that's gone from 'bling' to 'clang' as every facial feature has had a needle rammed through and a bit of metal installed.
You can get a coffee at Starbucks but the cost is sky-high and they don't do refills.
It used to be you could just go to a deli or a cafe and sit and guzzle all the coffee you want, but those seem to be gone also.
You'd think it'd be a business opportunity, but wherever you go the landlord is demanding OUTRAGEOUS lease payments.
Ehhh, let it rot. I can still buy Nescafe 475g tub for under $20, there's lots of refills in there.
I DON'T GIMME A CRAP.
Starbucks started out as a bean wholesale house in the early 70's. I was in the Seattle area then going to school(US NAVY) for water treatment and toured their plant.
In the mid 80's they went retail, but the original owners were still involved and the quality was maintained until the early 2000's. This is when they went full corporate crapola and the bean counters started (no pun intended) to fuck shit up.
When the whole coffee shop thing took off (2000's) is when they started a slow down hill slide too the shit it is today.
Today their water treatment is nothing more than running it through a sand filter to remove suspended solids. Nothing for dissolved solids, Ph balance, oxygen content, or other impurities.
This is the corporate way today, like so many other things that corporate has managed to screw the pooch on.
I do service work for a local company and maintain their equipment. In the past 10-12 years their equipment repair costs have gone down 50-70% simply because they now believe in the quality of the ingredient that makes up 99.999% of the product that they sell.
That's a lot of what Coca-cola is and why they do so well in the bottled water market. There isn't a lot of ingredient cost for fizzy drinks, but a fair bit of machinery so if one can sell a bottle of water for the same money or more than an equivalent volume of fizzy drink, profit.
"We're finding through our work that investments in labor, rather than equipment, are more effective at improving throughput and driving transaction growth," he said, adding that the biz has paused equipment rollouts and abandoned planned deployment of cold press, cold brew machines.
"We believe this evolved labor-focused approach has more potential to improve throughput and connection while minimizing future capital expenditures on equipment," he said.
Oh, chef’s kiss—pure corporate brilliance. They blew a ton of cash on machines to "optimize labor," only to discover (shocking!) that robots can’t pour coffee and smile at the same time. Now, after watching that plan implode, they’ve decided the real innovation is... doing what worked all along. But wait! It’s not a humiliating retreat—it’s an “evolved labor-focused approach” that “maximizes connection” (translation: baristas still exist, and we’re pretending that’s a strategy). Naturally, they’re hyping it as a masterstroke of efficiency, while quietly sweeping the pricey equipment debacle under the rug. Truly next-level leadership—fail fast, then market the failure as genius.
At this rate, I fully expect the next big breakthrough to be “discovering” that coffee actually tastes better when it’s hot.
"They blew a ton of cash on machines to "optimize labor," only to discover (shocking!) that robots can’t pour coffee and smile at the same time."
Why not?
Given the appearance of many retail workers these days, I find it disturbing to look at them at all and a smile might put me off my feed for the rest of the day. Just show me a photo of a hot (non-tattooed) bikini model while my drink dispenses. Extra bonus for no piercings.
"I’m telling Americans to by their mothers chocolate this Mother’s Day as it may never again be an option."
Give up chocolate? Yeah, right.
What will happen, at least with me, is I'll only buy small quantities of the really good stuff for special occasions. Mom will get a 4-5 piece collection of posh chocolates rather than a 1kg assortment box.
Starbucks are having yet another crack at Western Australia and have recently opened a couple of stores. The queues of "influencers" was embarrassing (or "cringe" as I believe they say).
Hopefully we'll chase them out the state again and carry on with decent coffee. Especially if they try an automated shit.
Now if we can work on Coles and Woolworths backtracking on whatever they're calling the way they're reducing their humans to a handful per store.
"Over the last couple of years, we've actually been removing labor from the stores, I think with the hope that equipment could offset the removal of the labor,"
"And I think what we're finding is that was just – that wasn't an accurate assumption with what played out."
What? What does this even mean? What are "that" and "that"? Sales? Can I get paid to talk gibberish?
Trying to sell being a barista as a skilled job, then replacing that skilled job with a machine - yeah, not the best example of joined up thinking.
A couple of years back I went to a festival in Sheffield and they had beer and cider vending machines. Queuing for ages in front of a load of machines whilst pissed punters tried to work out how to use them, possibly the most souless experience of my long life...
of where the people on eye-watering salaries manage to have fuck all grasp of the business they are leeching - sorry - "leading".
I will bet cold hard cash, that somewhere in the corporate records of Starbucks, you will find plenty of upward communications saying "This is a really bad idea".
"I will bet cold hard cash, that somewhere in the corporate records of Starbucks, you will find plenty of upward communications saying "This is a really bad idea"."
I doubt that. There will be a meeting and when it comes up, the room will wait until the senior manager voices their opinion followed by vigorous agreement from the rest of he table to what they say. To move up, one must often suck up first. You don't want to have it down in writing that you disagreed with the boss.
Starbucks was once one of those fashionable things were the "trendy" people wanted to be seen with a cup of starbucks "coffee" (Which contained only marginal amounts of coffee and mostly other things to make it taste entirely unlike coffee). Now? The economy is going to shit and Starbucks as a brand has become mundane, pedestrian and un-hip. People are waking up to the fact their products are mostly overpriced and mediocre. So I think Starbucks has probably crested the hill and things will decline from here. Slowly at first, possibly precipitously if/when the economy properly goes to crap due to a certain umpa-lumpas policies.
Found out that on long cross country trips, garden centres are the best place for a break, usually decent food and drink.
A little one near Llandovery does great sandwiches.
One near Cardigan, great toasted sandwiches with chicken in.
One near home, fantastic burgers.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
