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The Starbucks on North Main Street, which opened just last year, is one of four New Mexico coffee joints getting the ultimate decaffeination -- a 616-store closure nationwide aimed at under-performing stores.
Mlainie Washburn, a shift manager who's worked for various Starbucks for 2 1/2 years, said Friday that the company gave the store's 15 employees ample notice about the impending closure and promised them they would be "absorbed" into the other locations -- like the new location under construction across the street from New Mexico State University, at the corner of Espina Street and University Avenue.
"It's the location. It's just so hard to access. Sometimes, I wait five minutes to get across, so I can totally understand why," Washburn said about her store, set off the fast-moving, five-lane interchange of U.S. 70 and Interstate 25, in a small plaza with few other stores.
Washburn said Starbucks is planning on giving them 30 days' notice before the store will close for good. (For those in the area worried about their "fix,"
drive-through shack Mountain Mudd is just half a mile down the street.) Barista Pete Gonzalez, who's worked for Starbucks for about a year, says he's not worried about the closure, but that it was "unfortunate."
"Everybody's going to be fine," he said. "Nothing's really going to change."
"A lot of the regular customers here, they're sad to see it go," Washburn said. "Starbucks just grew way too fast."
Indeed, the "coffee bubble" has long been a national joke -- from satirical newspaper The Onion's 1998 article "New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room of Existing Starbucks" to 2000's mockumentary "Best in Show," with its revoltingly delicious yuppie love-at-first-sight story: "We met at Starbucks," coos Meg Swan. "Not the same Starbucks. We saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other."
Or, as one visitor said Friday, "usually, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one." Kim Schneider, who was visiting Friday morning from Albuquerque, said the Main Street Starbucks, just off the highway, was the easiest to find.
"I'll have to find another one," said Schneider, camped out with a pastry, her laptop and a soy latte. "If I can't do that, I'll just get a Diet Coke."
The Starbucks on South Valley Drive, North Telshor Boulevard and East Lohman Avenue in Las Cruces will remain in business; no El Paso stores will be affected in the closure but one store each will close in Albuquerque, Roswell and Bloomfield.
Ashley Meeks can be reached at ameeks@lcsun-news.com
To see more of the Las Cruces Sun-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.lcsun-news.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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