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“Very often, all the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth.”
— Leo Tolstoy
Was it the drive-thru, or lack thereof, that killed Starbucks in Osborne Village?
The Macro
A few weeks ago, I used this space to pose some questions about the sudden closure of Starbucks in Osborne Village. The iconic coffee chain did not come right out and say the location would be permanently shut down. Instead, there was some corporate PR-speak about re-assessing the location to ensure that staff and patrons were safe and happy.
And then, this week, Starbucks confirmed the standalone location in Osborne Village is closing for good.
In my earlier newsletter, I expressed concern about Starbucks’ lack of transparency. That location was always super packed with locals chatting, working and studying. There had been some violent incidents in the village in recent weeks but given that Starbucks is a committed urban lifestyle brand, it would be hard to find many locations outside of airports where there isn’t some concerns about street crime.
When Starbucks officially confirmed the closure on Monday of this week, company spokeswoman Leanna Rizzi told our reporter the company “routinely evaluates its store portfolio to determine how and where we can best meet the needs of our… (employees), customers and the communities we serve.”
She also repeated earlier comments about how the “personal safety and security” of its staff was part of the re-evaluation process.
Starbucks in Osborne Village. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files)
What Rizzi didn’t tell our reporter is what she apparently told Zohreh Gervais, executive director of the Osborne Village BIZ, who then thankfully told our reporter. “What they said to me… was that several factors were taken into account. Most fell under the umbrella of site and market potential, including customer patterns.”
After reading those comments, I have decided to officially call “bullshit” on Starbucks.
No store owner, global chain or locally owned, is obliged to operate a store in a place where they don’t want to. However, when the closure reflects badly on the neighborhood or city, then at the very least the store owner has an obligation to explain why it was necessary to shut down. And if market potential and customer patters are the issue, then just say that.
So, if it’s not street crime, then what’s going on?
Several readers contacted me after the first newsletter and said they heard Starbucks was closing locations here that didn’t have drive-thru lanes. A quick mental recap of locations that seemed to be super busy but were closed include Broadway at Donald Street and Academy Road at Lanark Street. Neither had a drive-thru.
I also heard from some people who had inquired about leasing former Starbucks locations, who were told the company was abandoning sites without drive-thrus. This is, in a way, hardly breaking news: hospitality industry publications have reported for a couple of years now on Starbucks’ growing obsession with drive-thrus.
Here’s the rub for Starbucks: revealing to your customers that you want to compete more directly with chains such as Tim Horton’s by opening more drive-thrus is not great for a brand originally built on being a trendy hub of community interaction.
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You may not remember this, but before Starbucks’ expansion outside of Seattle in the late 1980s, there weren’t a lot of cool places to grab a coffee and work for a few hours apart from a very small number of sleepy independent coffee shops. In fact, hospitality sector analysts believe that Starbucks’ expansion triggered the “coffee shop culture” we enjoy today.
In other words, once Starbucks proved it was possible to get someone to spend $5 for a cup of coffee, upscale independent coffee shops began to proliferate.
Once again, let’s be clear: Starbucks doesn’t owe it to Winnipeg to stay in any location, and I don’t really give a damn about whether there is a Starbucks in Osborne Village. (Tip of the hat, Little Sisters). If they closed all of the Starbucks in this city, our collective lives would not change one iota.
But I seriously resent a company making a business decision to close some stores to open more drive-thru locations by hiding behind a spectre of street crime.
I seriously hope a new, independent coffee shop opens in the old Osborne Village Starbucks. Once it does, I may never have to darken the door of the previous tenant.
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