Slate: Starbucks closings hit rest of South harder than Atlanta/Georgia
July 22, 2008 at 9:07 am by David Lee Simmons in NewsIf the number-crunching reported in today’s Slate are correct, Atlanta and Georgia fare much better than the rest of the Deep South in the Great Starbucks Shrinkage plan of killing off 600 shops across the U.S. Georgia has the third-lowest percentage of closings, higher only than North Carolina (by a fraction) and South Carolina. (I didn’t count Virginia, just cuz.)
Slate author Chadwick Martin presents a pretty interesting breakdown of the closings, along with some thoughts on why, but the article also solicits opinions from Starbuckians at the local level to see what they think. As I mentioned in a recent Fresh Loaf post, most of the Atlanta-area closings seem to be outside the perimeter.
As recent coverage over the past year has suggested, independently owned coffee shops seemed to have thrived, not suffered, by the presence of a Starbucks in the general vicinity in that the chain has increased interest in and foot traffic for coffee in general. I wonder, then, how these closings will affect the Auroras or other, lesser-known chains in Atlanta. Will this interest/foot traffic lessen with this shrinkage, or will the indies consolidate their strength in this changing market?
Caffeine for thought.
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