Story and Photos by Angelina Bellebuono

 

When Madison Starbucks’ employee Georgette Tarpley received her company-issued award for 10 years of service three weeks ago, the Starbucks district manager posed with her for a photograph to commemorate the occasion.

But before the local newspaper could run the photo, Tarpley and her fellow Starbucks associates were told their store would be closing by April’s end.

• • •
On Friday the United States Department of Labor reported that 694,000 people lost jobs in March, elevating the national unemployment rate from 8.1 to 8.5 percent. Although the closing of Madison Starbucks will only add a proverbial drop in the unemployment bucket, the company announced that this closing is just one of 200 across the United States, following the closure of 600 stateside stores in 2008.

For employees (or “partners” to use corporate Starbucks language) like Tarpley, the store closing means more than being relocated to another nearby store (one of the offers that Starbucks often makes when closing a location) or losing just a job. Tarpley, along with more than half of the 20 Madison Starbucks employees, relied on this position for its health insurance benefits as well as its income potential.

“I know that my husband and I won’t be able to afford health insurance for ourselves now,” she says. Her main hope is that family connections with a health practitioner will give her access to affordable medical care for her two sons, if a need should arise.

And, like so many other two-income American families, recent economic woes have taken a toll on their personal finances. Tarpley says that despite her efforts to keep ahead, she has watched their debt-to-income ratio rise steadily in the past months.

“It’s getting really thin,” she says. “I don’t want to think about bankruptcy. But I might have to.”

• • •

Other than the “Save our Starbucks” petition that more than 500 people have signed in the five days since the announcement was made and the “Starbucks Closes” neatly written across April 25 on the dry erase calendar hanging above the cream and sugar, the lobby of Starbucks doesn’t look any different than it did on April 1 when the district manager visited to share the grim news.

There are still cheery welcomes from the employees. The table tops are clean and there are no fingerprints on the pastry case glass. A Starbucks partner still laughs with a regular drive-thru customer, and in-store regulars get their orders without having to ask.

There are still suit-clad customers sipping espresso, typing feverishly on laptops. The young mothers in the corner chat about their children, and every other minute or so, a few more customers will pull into the parking lot, exit their SUV-BMW-pickup truck-police car-midsize sedan- bumper sticker-sporting, I-voted-in-this-election automobile and stretch their legs before entering the comfort and familiarity that comes with a corporation’s careful branding.

Suzita George lives in Madison. An artist and animal lover, she brings her rescued dogs on her daily visits to Starbucks.

George is just one of many of the store’s customers who has recognized and appreciated the creation of the “third place environment” that is at the heart of Starbucks’ Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz’s guiding principles for the company. The concept- a place that isn’t work and isn’t home, but a third place where people can gather to relax, reflect and enjoy life- is as much about ambience as product. It’s branding, and in Madison, under the guidance of Store Manager Ginger Doshier-Simmons, the Starbucks staff has, according to local customers, created a model experience.

“I think Starbucks in our community has given us a “I think Starbucks in our community has given us a place to celebrate the day,” George says. “It’s a safe little place to go, sit with yourself and collect your thoughts over a beautiful cup of coffee.”

Another Madison resident and regular customer, Mael Bowman, agrees. As a businessman who conducts most of his work from his home, he enjoys his daily change of scenery, as well as what he can get done during his break. “I read,” he says. “I use these moments to get a lot of reading done in relative anonymity.”

Both customers purchase and enjoy the products available, but as George explains, “I can make a good coffee at home. I go for the experience.”

• • •
At the end of April, Starbucks Southeast Region Marketing Manager Bill Black will be handling 508 stores instead of 535. The Madison store is one of the casualties.

He could not specify a reason for closing store #11351.

“It’s more than likely not making money,” he said in a phone interview Monday.
The process to determine which stores to close is a rigid one, he said. “The decisions aren’t made quickly, or flippantly.”

He attributes most of the recent (July 2008 to present) round of Starbuck closings to the rapid company growth in 2006, when the company was opening more than five stores a day, world-wide, according USA Today.

But really, he reiterated, it’s all about dollars.

There are trend lines. Discussions about viable growth. Screens used by senior management.
“Your store must have failed one of those screens,” he said. “These are not easy decisions.”

• • •
Store Manager Ginger Doshier-Simmons says her partners in Madison are more than employees. For the two years and some months since the store’s opening at the tail end of 2006, she has worked with her group to help make Starbucks a part of the community.

“We are like family. We fight, we get mad, we laugh, we make up.”

She tears up a little when she talks about the closure date, and what it means for her staff. While Simmons has expressed her interest in possibly transferring to another store location, either near and far, many of her employees don’t have the ability to move or the option to drive the distance necessary to work in Conyers or Athens, if those stores were even able to absorb them.

“I am deeply saddened and heartbroken for the partners,” she says.

Despite her melancholy, Simmons still doesn’t completely understand the closing. Even in the last few months, sales have not been bad, she says. The only significant drop in sales she can report occurred when their billboard on I-20 came down in July 2008. Had the sign stayed up, she believes the store may have had a chance to earn million-dollar status, a mark of excellence in the Starbucks world, and one that might be a key indicator for a store’s long-term viability.

According to Bill Black, the placement of the Madison store on the most recent closure list probably occurred when the July 2008 closure list was compiled, which means that the Madison store’s success rate was based on the trends and sales of it first months.

While Simmons and her staff worked diligently in the last year to gain customers and brand the company in Madison, executives on the other side of the country counted the fair-trade, specialty-roasted coffee beans.

And Madison came up short.

• • •
Madison-Morgan County Director of Economic Development Bob Hughes doesn’t like empty boxes. There are already too many in Madison, he says.

“Every time you see vacant buildings,” he notes, “it doesn’t speak well for the vibrancy of the community.”

In Madison, Hughes counts the empties: Freds, the old Ingles, the old Wal-Mart, Bi-Lo and its neighbors.

Soon, there will be one more to add to Hughes’ tally.

“What does this tell you?” he asks. “Times are tough.”

Starbucks deals with vacancies left by closures on a case by case basis, Black explained. “There is no one method,” he says.

The real estate company that owns the dirt where Starbucks sits is based in California, and at press time, was not available for comment regarding what might be in store next for the space.

Hughes is always looking for the bright spot. It’s his job, after all. And he is quick to point out that with Madison, money spent advertising on the interstate is money well spent.

“Look how much business the McDonalds and Pilot get. They advertise,” he says. “There is no doubt that signage on the interstate gets the interstate traffic.”

• • •

For the partners at Madison Starbucks, this is a bittersweet time. They listen as customers expound philosophically upon how wonderful Starbucks is and the significance of the store in their lives, while emphatically signing their names to the ever-lengthening petition list.

They prepare with the ease of professionals yet another double-shot, extra-syrup, skinny latte custom drink as a woman who makes a weekly drive between Atlanta and Augusta explains that she stops at the Madison store each time she passes through town. “I’m a dedicated Starbucks customer,” she says. “Actually, my daughter’s first word was Starbucks.”

But in the moments when customers aren’t rushing the counter, and the sounds of brewing coffee are louder than conversations, the partners seem more comfortable talking about how the other partners will suffer with the store closure than they are talking about their own struggles.

They don’t want to say too much, either, out of concern for protecting the small severance package they are slated to receive.

And, for now, Simmons is choosing not to notice that one worker didn’t wear the required collared shirt, or that another worker forgot to wear her hat.

These are small rebellions for loss.

 

 

 

PRINTED IN THE APRIL 9, 2009 EDITION