Caffeine crash: Four local Starbucks stores bonk
Other coffee shops speak of impact
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| Roy Sykes photo -- The Starbucks store on Elm Street in St. Charles is among four being closed in St. Charles County. |
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The magnanimity of the coffee behemoth is well known. Less obvious is the effect Starbucks has on local coffee shops.
One might expect local coffee brewers to be jumping for joy at the expected closures, but it's not such a clear-cut position."We have a lot of regulars who come in to support us who otherwise wouldn't be coming in because we're a family coffee house," said Julie Heckenkamp, who owns St. Charles Coffee House at 3821 McClay Road with her husband, Jack.
It's true. The coffee giant has lent itself to the ire of those who can't stand having their cappuccino served by a large corporation. But Starbucks had opened four more stores in St. Charles County in the last two years, more than a third of the number of stores it has in the county. And in recent months, at least one locally owned store, It's A Grind on Elm Street in St. Charles, has closed, falling victim to sharing traffic with Starbucks.
Local coffee shop owners look at Starbucks with a cautious detachment and a debt of gratitude. After all, Heckenkamp says, Starbucks gave birth to the coffee house revolution, which has given her store business. At the same time, some hold a bit of resentment toward the coffee chain.
"I think their goal was to put everyone out of business, and they just couldn't do it," Heckenkamp said.
Stein Hunter, who opened Crooked Tree Coffee House at 559 First Capitol Drive in St. Charles six years ago, said Starbucks was too late when it began to establish stores in the region.
"A big corporation has the capital to support growth, but they still have to serve a great cup of coffee," Hunter said.
Still, local owners know they owe a debt of gratitude to the Seattle-based company.
"The reality of it is that the majority of people in the coffee house business owe the fact that their business exists to them because Starbucks created this industry and left it to us to do it properly," Hunter said.
CAN'T SURVIVE ON COFFEE ALONE
Local coffee house owners agree it's difficult to stay in business if all you sell is, well, coffee. That's why both the Heckenkamps and Hunter have expanded their businesses to offer services such as catering, party hosting and lunch.
Crooked Tree offers breakfast and lunch. And the offerings at St. Charles Coffee House continued to expand as the Heckenkamps discovered that baked goods and coffee weren't cutting mustard.
"We started off just as a coffee house thinking we could make a living on that and realized we had to do something else," Heckenkamp said. "So we made muffins and baked goods and then realized we had to do lunches and realized it's still not enough."
St. Charles Coffee House now offers live music performances and rents out its back room for parties to keep business humming.
Gary Bickel, a retired engineer who goes to Starbucks three times a week with friend Jerry Jones, said he thinks another economic situation led to Starbucks' demise.
"The owner at It's a Grind complained that customers had to choose between $4-a-gallon gas and a $4 cup of coffee," he said.
CUSTOMERS FIND NEW MEETING PLACE
First It's A Grind closed, and now the Elm Street Starbucks is next. That's left Bickel and Jones, two friends from St. Charles who are retired engineers, without a location for their thrice-weekly chats after their morning walk.
Bickel said he and Jones frequented It's A Grind for a couple of years because it was locally owned, but found themselves coming to Starbucks after it closed.
"We had a certain bias against Starbucks because it's a big company driving the little guy out of business," Bickel said.
With cars humming through the drive-through last week, and pastel-colored promotional material advertising the latest Starbucks smoothies and the company's Starbucks Entertainment music series, there was little to indicate the Elm Street Starbucks soon would shut its doors.
But now, Bickel and Jones are on the prowl for a new hangout.
"We were on the white chocolate mocha for a while, and we tried the teas a couple times," Bickel said of their favorite drinks.
"We'll have to go across town when it closes," Jones said, both of them mentioning Crooked Tree.
STORES TO CLOSE THROUGH MARCH
Starbucks Regional Marketing Manager Amy Lemen said stores could close as early as the end of July and closings would continue through the end of March nationally. Dates for local stores were not available, she said.
"We're taking a look at stores and profitability and what the company was projecting and the stores that were not meeting profitability and projected returns," she said.
In addition to the St. Charles County stores, 10 Starbucks locations in St. Louis County are scheduled to close.
The company is closing about 600 stores nationwide, according to a news release from Starbucks.
Lemen said the company has not yet released any cost-saving targets.
Greg Prestemon, president of the Economic Development Center of St. Charles County, said Starbucks is a valuable employer in the region.
"They really are a good employer," Prestemon said. "It's a niche employment opportunity for people that are semi-retired, need a second job, or even as a first job."
Closure list
Four St. Charles County Starbucks stores are slated to close as part of the gourmet coffee chain's national effort to cut costs, according to a news release from the company.
The following local stores are on the company's closure list:
? 7827 Highway N at Interstate 64 in Dardenne Prairie;
? 4581 Highway K near Weldon Spring Road in O'Fallon;
? 3788 Elm St., at Elm and Highway 370 in St. Charles;
? 5851 Westwood Drive at Highway 94 in Weldon Spring.
