Starbucks closing 4 Mobile locations

[Azalea City Man]

Originally Posted by breer23

I can't believe they are shutting down the location nearest USA, but yet they keep open the one on Grelot/Hillcrest...that area is just an accident waiting to happen

I loved having that Starbucks at Grelot and Hillcrest, but hated that intersection and how the entrance was set up. You absolutely could not get to there if you were going south on Hillcrest or east on Grelot ... as the entrance is only off Hillcrest going north. I mean, you could create your own pain-in-the-butt workarounds with the Winn Dixie parking lot, but that was no fun at all if there was any traffic.

Originally Posted by breer23

Since I'm no longer there, I'm just curious what the reaction is from the local coffee shops (e.g. Carpe Diem & Satori) that were so vehemently against having to compete with all of the newer Starbucks that had opened recently.

I'm sure they are glad and I used those indapendent shops when I could out of support, but they still were not as convinient as Starbucks being at the intersection of University/Old Shell (especially to me, as I spent hours upon hours in the USA College of Education in that same parking lot.)

[Reactionary]

I just found out when Starbucks announced the closing of one store in Huntsville that HSV has seven Starbucks (I had never even heard of that location - no wonder it's closing).

BTW, I stocked up on Community Coffee while I was at the beach, they haven't been in HSV since Katrina...

[unstoppablemobile]

Considering they are a Seattle based company, I could care less if they closed every one of them. I only drink real coffee.. Community..cause only us Southerners now how to eat and drink real food and beverages! Watch CC's coffee (Community Coffee) take over those locations.. then youll never care about Starbucks again!

[Bravo35223]

Originally Posted by sebring38

Clark Howard said that it was part of Starbuck's marketing plan to oversaturate the market with their locations to drive competitors out of business. Since they have pretty much accomplished their objective, it doesn't make a lot of sense, when looking a profitability, to keep closely congregated shops open.

Two Starbucks have closed in Birmingham. The paper documented that Starbucks opened new stores in close proximity to local well-established coffeehouses. In one case, the Starbucks store was literally right next door - they shared a wall.

In this case, the reverse happened....the local coffehouses drove the Starbucks locations out of business. One local owner was quoted as saying that when Starbucks opened next door, it hardly made a blip in her business and subsequently, she expected very little increase in business as a result of their closing.

I think two factors are hurting Starbucks: 1) the economy - as people are going to forego a $4 cup of coffee when cutting back and 2) they have been obviously arrogant in trying to drive locals out of business.

O'Henry's in Homewood blew their store away...not surprised at all that they closed that one....a much better established store, with a wider selection of beans also - which ironically was the first Starbucks store - it sold beans only...not the finished product.

[southernnaturelover]

Starbucks tried to make their baristas out to be rocket scientists. I have my own espresso machine at home and it's not that complicated.

[downtowndoll]

I have been surprised this one made it but the drive thru is usually packed. The servers are so nice. Sometimes they have dog washes, to raise money for SPCA or a small band on Friday nights.

We come here all the time; way too much. When I'm out of cereal, we run through before school for their reduced fat Cinnamon Swirl coffee cake, which is better than the other kind anyway. We are out of cereal often!

We patronize all of them. Has anyone tried Serdas downtown yet? They sell alcoholic bev. too, which I didn't know until recently.