Starbucks closing Tuesday night - Biggby's offering free drinks

[blueradon]

Just read on WZZM that Starbucks is closing from 5:30-8:30pm while their employees get some training.

On top of that, Biggby's Coffee is offering their entire drink menu for free during those hours to take advantage of the Starbucks closing.

Go get your free drinks tonight!!!

[GRCentro]

Tuesday night.

Starbucks closing

[blueradon]

Sorry my bad - I'm so off with the calendar right now it's not funny LOL

[Talking Up GR]

Outstanding. I'm not a coffee guy, so I won't partake - but I hope they win over new customers!

Then, we can do away with use of the word "barista." Do we need a word for "guy who pours coffee?"

[fotoman311]

Comment I just left on the Biggby's website:

"My wife and I were very disappointed tonight. After hearing from a couple of people and then reading in the newspaper that "Everything on the drink menus at all 16 Biggby Coffee shops in this area will be free" we were excited to stop by and try something before our concert at St. Cecilia's at 7:30. I haven't been to Beaner's (you'll always be Beaner's to us) before and she hadn't been in awhile.

Well, after dinner, we walked down only to find the store dark. The sign on the door said they closed at 5pm. The posted hours said they should be open until 9pm. How convenient that they closed right before this highly publicized free giveaway. Looks kind of bad for that store. So we headed up a couple of stores to locally owned Four Friends and had a delicious cup of macadamia nut mocha. Probably will head there in the future as well. Your store missed a chance to convince us why we should go there instead."

I was really looking forward to trying a free coffee drink, too. It seems like bad business to get such big publicity, having a large, extremely noticable photo of your logo on the very front, top fold of the newspaper, and then not be open for the event. It would be different if they had said participating locations, but the article specifically said that all 16 area shops were participating.

I'll follow up here if I get a response to my comment.

[Veloise]

Comment I just left on the Biggby's website:

... then reading in the newspaper that "Everything on the drink menus at all 16 Biggby Coffee shops in this area will be free" ...It seems like bad business to get such big publicity, having a large, extremely noticable photo of your logo on the very front, top fold of the newspaper, and then not be open for the event. It would be different if they had said participating locations, but the article specifically said that all 16 area shops were participating. ...

[grstudent]

I took part in the event and got my free coffee from the Plainfield location, (near Leonard intersection). I waited for about 10 minutes in the drive-thru line. (Not bad at all considering I've waited much longer for other places).

It's too bad that the downtown location was closed. My other choice would have been to visit the downtown location because of the near proximity to my college (GRCC). I'm glad I didn't go there otherwise I also would have been very dissappointed.

[fotoman311]

Everything published in the local paper is completely accurate and well-researched. (And correctly spelled.)

[jbr12]

We were about to get in line at the Fuller & Leonard store, but my wife didn't want to wait around THAT long for a free coffee (line was into the road). We then proceeded to Rivertown where we heard a number of people complain about Starbucks being closed (even the bookstore's coffee shop was closed)

[radicaljoy]

I was looking for the passage from this piece about what people will do for "free" stuff. Apparently it's not in the print portion -- I must have heard it in the interview which you can access by going to the NPR site:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=19231906

To give you a clue what this is, the title and first 3 sentences:

Dissecting People's 'Predictably Irrational' Behavior

All Things Considered, February 21, 2008

As a behavioral economist, Dan Ariely studies the way people make economic decisions.

His conclusion? We don't do it the way economists typically say we do.

Instead, he finds, humans are "predictably irrational," which is also the title of his latest book.

<snip>

I'm a cynic, but my sense of this from the beginning was that the Starbucks training & closing was more for image than real value. Look at all the press it's gotten. I had this view endorsed by a local Starbucks employee. Something he pointed out that I hadn't factored in, is that with the high employee turnover, well, much wasted effort. Better to look at ways to reduce staff turnover.

[Veloise]

...

Dissecting People's 'Predictably Irrational' Behavior

All Things Considered, February 21, 2008

...I'm a cynic, but my sense of this from the beginning was that the Starbucks training & closing was more for image than real value. Look at all the press it's gotten. I had this view endorsed by a local Starbucks employee. Something he pointed out that I hadn't factored in, is that with the high employee turnover, well, much wasted effort. Better to look at ways to reduce staff turnover.

[WOT]

Comment I just left on the Biggby's website:

"My wife and I were very disappointed tonight. After hearing from a couple of people and then reading in the newspaper that "Everything on the drink menus at all 16 Biggby Coffee shops in this area will be free" we were excited to stop by and try something before our concert at St. Cecilia's at 7:30. I haven't been to Beaner's (you'll always be Beaner's to us) before and she hadn't been in awhile.

Well, after dinner, we walked down only to find the store dark. The sign on the door said they closed at 5pm. The posted hours said they should be open until 9pm. How convenient that they closed right before this highly publicized free giveaway. Looks kind of bad for that store. So we headed up a couple of stores to locally owned Four Friends and had a delicious cup of macadamia nut mocha. Probably will head there in the future as well. Your store missed a chance to convince us why we should go there instead."

I was really looking forward to trying a free coffee drink, too. It seems like bad business to get such big publicity, having a large, extremely noticable photo of your logo on the very front, top fold of the newspaper, and then not be open for the event. It would be different if they had said participating locations, but the article specifically said that all 16 area shops were participating.

I'll follow up here if I get a response to my comment.

[fotoman311]

I actually kind of appluad this particular store's actions. Unless there was some sort of Corporate credit coming down to the store owner - I admire his biz acumen for not giving his product away for free. Now - if there was some sort of arrangement between the parent company and the local owner and he still closed -different story. I have spoken to several Beaners owners and know that margins aren't exactly huge anyway. Just because a PR idea on the white board looks "cool" doesn't always translate into sound biz practice.