The struggling coffee chain has tapped Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol to be its new chairman and CEO, effective September 9. Starbucks’ stock soared more than 13% in premarket trading, while Chipotle’s dipped 8%.
Niccol has been leading the Mexican-inspired food chain since 2018, with Starbucks saying he has set “new standards in the industry and driven significant growth and value creation,” pointing to its revenue growing nearly 800% during his tenure.
Starbucks closes shops that vote to unionize. Boycott Starbucks.
I used to love Starbucks because it was a great place to get coffee and chill. Then the whole anti-unions thing, and local coffee shops did it better making me drop Starbucks.
I used to love Chipotle because of their quality and price. Then portions got weirder. Every week was a new food recall. The ones near me look filthy and sad, and that made me drop Chipotle.
To see both of their names together… Yikes.
You’re looking for the place that uses paper plates, has a website, but clearly took the picture of their food 10 years ago with a Motorola Razr.
Website? Negative ghost rider.
You’re looking for the place with the small self-serve sauces, jalapeños and pickled carrots &onions. Never tablecloths. Strip mall locations only if located in the US Southwest. Wheels +3 to menu, -1 cost modifiers. +5 to taste if Latinx customers eat there.
local coffee shops did it better
I wish! We have a “TimeOut!” coffee shop down the road, and they’ve got the attitude and they price their thimbles-worth like it’s the airport, but I really didn’t go in for the show so much as a decent frothy cuppa; and I left feeling just as lacking and a little less valued.
This dude ruined chipotle in so many ways. Cutting serving sizes, using lower quality ingredients, reducing employee count and training quality, just letting everything slip. He took that chain from one of the most reliable to somewhere I refuse to set foot in.
But line went up, clearly he’s a genius, fail into the next role!
I agree with all those points except the serving size one. I remember reading recently that the CEO was upset about some locations skimping after people complained and sent corpos out to retrain them.
Doesn’t seem like that training stuck, at least as of June it’s still wildly inconsistent.
I don’t have empirical data, but I do know in 2016/17 at the height of my chipotle addiction I could get a bowl for lunch, be filled, and have enough left over for a late night snack. Last time I was there it was all “are you asking for double protein? that’ll be extra”
I prefer just black coffee. No milk, sugar.
Out of all chain coffee places (in the UK, so costa/nero etc), starbucks has the worst tasting coffee
As someone who also only drinks black coffee I agree. Their signature taste is literally burnt because of the way they roast their beans. It’s terrible.
This goes into great detail about exactly why Starbucks coffee is so shitty.
And if you guessed a big part of it is about saving money, you win the teddy bear.
Same thing goes for tea. Lipton is super bitter. Imported teas from london don’t get bitter regardless of how long they are steeped. They actually taste and smell galaxies different than that “generic bitter tea smell” that much of the world is conditioned to.
Yes, true of most any national/international chain.
It’s because they value large volume, year round availability, and high consistency from their beans and roasts, so that no matter what location you go to it tastes exactly the same.
To do that, they select and blend several bland varieties of coffee bean, put them through an aggressive industrial cleaning and drying (which reduces the natural fruity and funky flavors but minimizes costs) then roast them in huge batches to several steps past where a normal roaster would stop for a given roast (a darker roast gets rid of more of the unique flavors of the coffee cherry and brings out more uniform roast flavors instead).
Again, not something exclusive to Starbucks at all, and plenty of small coffee shops don’t bother with the hassle and just buy cheap bulk coffee pre-roasted by large scale operations and will have similar results.
But man, when you get coffee made in small batches, with natural processing or even fermentation and gently roasted… It’s an entirely different experience.
It’s just weird that any chain would opt for consistently awful instead of just settling for slight variations. It’s also weird that people still buy it despite the fact it is objectively and consistently bad.
I don’t mean any offense but it sounds like that’s what you’re missing. People don’t seem to value taste as their number 1 concern. Probably convenience of some kind (or the fact that they are everywhere). Sounds like SB is having trouble at the moment, but they’ve had the same shitty coffee for forever and they’ve done alright previously.
Their coffee in the U.S. is the worst too IMO, aside from the occasional awful gas station coffee and I wouldn’t be shocked if they were buying Starbucks roast since they also sell it in bags in supermarkets. But, of course, it’s like McDonald’s- no matter where you go, you know what it will taste like. So people rely on it.
I avoid it as much as I possibly can (it doesn’t help that I used to work on a show in L.A. that was partially sponsored by Starbucks and it was that or our other sponsor, Red Bull, if I wanted caffeine while working). The only times I go when I’m not traveling and have to make a caffeine pit stop and there are no other options is when all the other local coffee places are already closed since they all close earlier than Starbucks and I want to sit somewhere not at home to do something.
Other than that, I always go local. And here, a lot of the local places have drive-throughs, so even that convenience Starbucks offers is unnecessary. They’re usually cheaper than Starbucks too. And, of course, better coffee.
That’s what I hear, but I’d rather go to a local place. I always try to support local businesses over chains when possible. Even if it’s just a place I’m visiting, I’d rather support their local coffee chain than put more money in McDonald’s or Starbucks coffee. And I’ve discovered a lot of really nice places to hang out that way.
Their coffee might be bad but people like them for their other drinks, or fancy coffees.
In the US, it is mediocre. I wouldn’t say it is terrible and if I am in a different city that lacks local shops, I’ll get it. But it is definitely not my first or even 10th choice. And no, the light and medium blends do taste burnt like everyone and their mother thinks it is cool to say. Those people are almost certainly getting dark roast.
Luckily I live in Seattle and have no issue finding good roasters and cafés that are not anti union.
I’ve enjoyed many a cup of Starbucks coffee in the past, but I’ve also tasted Starbucks side-by-side with fancy coffees, and it doesn’t even taste like coffee in that context, more like water that has had charred wood steeped in it. I think it must have gotten worse over time.
The lighter roasts may be better by the standards of lighter roasts, but I much prefer darker roasts, so I want them done right. Fortunately I also live in Seattle.
I hope Starbucks fans like waiting hours to get the wrong order.
