La Boulange bakery has been my favorite watering hole for years and I just learned with dismay that Starbucks (who bought La Boulange in 2012 for $100 million) intends to close its 23 stores by the end of September.
USA Today wrote “The Seattle-based coffee retailer will close all 23 of its La Boulange bakery-cafes in the next three months, saying the stores “weren’t sustainable for the company’s long-term growth.”
Excuse my French, but what kind of “merde de taureau” is that?
Not sustainable? No businessman would pay one hundred million bucks for an outfit if he did not think that it was profitable!
I smell a giant rat here.
“I never wanted to be on any billionaires list. I never define myself by net worth. I always try to define myself by my values.”
Howard Schultz
Oh Yeah? So why are you closing all 23 of successful La Boulange cafés in the next three months and putting hundreds of employees out of work?
What kind of values are those?
“Profitability is a shallow goal if it doesn’t have a real purpose, and the purpose has to be share the profits with others.”
Howard Schultz
Bollocks!
The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people.
B. White
In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked Schultz as the 354th richest person in the United States, with a net worth of $1.5 billion.
Is this not enough dough (pun intended) Mr. Schultz?
La Boulange (favorite breakfast and lunch spots in the San Francisco Bay Area) offers a variety of sandwiches, pastries and beverage unequalled in any other competitive outfits.
Especially at Starbucks.
Leave La Boulange alone!
Don’t let greed trump quality of life Mr. Shultz. Keep La Boulange open and keep your reputation as a wise businessman intact.
Alain