Jon Chesto writes in the Patriot Ledger that Stop & Shop and its Giant Food affiliate are shutting down nearly half of their in-store Starbucks kiosks.
“It was a business decision we arrived at with Starbucks,” said Faith Weiner, a spokeswoman for Quincy-based Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. “We did a business review together, and we decided these kiosks were not performing at levels that were acceptable and would allow them to continue to operate.”
The kiosk closures began last month and will be completed by mid-September, Weiner said. The affected kiosks are in 26 Stop & Shop stores and 17 Giant stores.
All of the kiosk employees work directly for Stop & Shop and Giant, which are part of the same operating division of Dutch conglomerate Royal Ahold, and the supermarket company is a Starbucks licensee. Weiner said none of the affected employees will be forced out of work: They are being offered other jobs in Stop & Shop and Giant stores.
After the closures, there will be 56 Starbucks kiosks in Stop & Shop and Giant stores, Weiner said. Another five Starbucks kiosks will open by the end of the year.
Royal Ahold last week reported that the operating income of its Stop & Shop/Giant division – more than 500 supermarkets – would include an impairment charge of $7 million primarily related to the closing of the in-store Starbucks kiosks.
In some locations where Starbucks kiosks are closing, Stop & Shop will replace them with automated Van Houtte coffee kiosks, Weiner said.
In certain other Stop & Shop stores, shoppers can stop at a Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk for coffee. Weiner said some locations in upstate New York have self-serve stations with Green Mountain coffee instead.
“We know that customers do like to have coffee when they shop,” Weiner said. “It’s a nice convenience. We continue to try to figure out what the best way is to offer that option to customers.”
It was a stupid idea to put Dunkin shops into supermarkets before it was a stupid idea to put Starbucks into them.
Of course when franchisees said this loudly when the program was shoved down our throats. Instead of listening to us we were told that our neighbor franchisees would be allowed to put them in even if you had a shop next door to the supermaket or owned the territory.
When we complained that we were right because our sales in these supermakets were terrible we were told it was our fault because we weren’t doing it right. I think that this Starbucks failure proves we were right from the get go and someone in Canton should have been listening instead of trying to increase his bonus with new shop opening numbers. Ironic that that guy was probably fired. Everybody lost on this botched concept. Except Stop & Shop. They took Dunkin to the cleaners, and then Starbucks.
Hopefully we can ALL learn from this debacle and make better decisions together in the future.