Starbucks Announces More Store Closings. What Will Happen To Roosevelt Island Starbucks?

Image of Roosevelt Island Starbucks

Starbucks recently announced another round of store closings. According to the NY Times:

The coffee store chain announced on Wednesday that it would close 300 more stores, affecting 6,000 employees, and would lay off 700 employees who don’t work in stores. Starbucks also reduced the number of new company-owned stores it plans to open this year to 310, from 470.

... “Starbucks lost its cultural cache, its value, before everyone became conscious of the economic fallout,” said Bryant Simon, a professor of history and American studies at Temple University who is publishing a book about Starbucks this fall.

Customers were deserting Starbucks stores by the beginning of 2007, he said, because its emphasis on frothy, milky, sugary drinks hurt its image as an authentic coffee house.

The Roosevelt Island Starbucks in Riverwalk escaped an earlier round of store closings last summer. I asked Riverwalk's developer David Kramer of the Hudson companies if he knew whether the Roosevelt Island Starbucks was to be closed or remain open and he replied:

I pray they don’t close, haven’t heard anything. The big question is, why aren’t Roosevelt Islanders doing a better job of patronizing Starbucks? If the store was doing great, we wouldn’t fret every time there are closings announced. Why isn’t there a line out the door?

I go to the Roosevelt Island Starbucks often and particularly enjoy their outdoor patio in the nice weather. It would be a real shame if just when the new Riverbank Sports Bar and Grill opens up across the Riverwalk Commons, our Starbucks closes.

Map of NY Times showing spread of NY Starbucks from 1994 onward from Curbed