Starbucks Puts Money Where Its Mouth Is…Sort Of

The Whiskey Congress podcast did not discuss the incident in the Philadelphia Starbucks in our last episode. Why not? Because it happened the day after we recorded the show. Full disclosure, Steve called me the next day and asked me to meet him for a drink, which I did. He told me about the incident in Philadelphia and suggested that we should record another episode immediately. Which would have been a great idea if not for the fact that I had already visited three other bars that evening. Steve and I will definitely discuss the event in our next show, but we will now be able to discuss the corporate response. I give Starbucks a good deal of credit. They could have fired the manager and released a statement condemning the event. Instead, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson took burden on himself…sort of. To Mr. Johnson’s credit, he accepted responsibility at the senior corporate level and published a video explaining his corporate vision of the bigger picture. Today, Starbucks announced that they will be closing 8,000 stores for a day in May to improve training and prevent anything like this from happening again. I don’t know how much this decision will cost Starbucks in lost sales. I don’t know if this decision was a calculated move to increase profits by avoiding boycotts, protests and bad publicity. I do know that Starbucks made an effort to bring racial tension to the forefront of the national discourse a few years ago with their “Race Together” campaign and it didn’t go well. Now Starbucks finds itself in the racial spotlight again. This time for reactive rather than proactive reasons. Oddly, this time they may have a greater impact…Sort of.