Training May Not Be Enough to Fix Starbucks's Image Problem
Starbucks' attempts to quell anger over alleged racial profiling at a Philadelphia coffee shop have struggled to convince a skeptical public, as more evidence of possible profiling at other stores has come to light.
In a [video posted to Twitter](https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/985896896433602565) Monday by the civil rights activist Shaun King, a black man identified as Brandon Ward appears to ask a Starbucks employee in Torrance, Calif., why he was refused access to the store's bathroom but a white customer was given the access code. The video was shot in January, according to KABC-TV, but it didn't pick up traction until King posted it to his Twitter feed.
The video, and the images shared widely last week from a Philadelphia store, where two black men were arrested after one asked to use the bathroom, have led to calls for a boycott of Starbucks and growing mistrust of the coffee giant, said Nikita Richardson, a staff writer at Grub Street.
"People think of it as a mass corporation with a bottom line," she said Wednesday on Cheddar. "They don't think of it as a company with a social underline."
Facing widespread criticism after the Philadelphia video went viral over the weekend, the Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson issued a public apology and met privately with the two men who were arrested. Starbucks also announced that it would close 8,000 of its US stores for the afternoon on Tuesday, May 29, to conduct racial-bias training for more than 175,000 employees. In a [company statement](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180417006454/en/) Johnson said the company is committed to addressing the problems that may have led to incident at the Philadelphia store.
"I’ve spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it,” said Johnson. “While this is not limited to Starbucks, we’re committed to being a part of the solution. Closing our stores for racial-bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities.”
These steps have not fully blunted the calls for a boycott.
"When starbucks does these things it feels disingenuous," Richardson said.
Starbucks had closed its stores before, in 2008, when the chief executive at the time Howard Schultz sought to re-educate employees in the art of espresso.
In his memoir, "Pour Your Heart Into It," Schultz wrote that the 2008 shutdown cost the company approximately $6 million. Marketwatch estimates that closing stores on a Tuesday afternoon in May will [cost twice that](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-starbucks-said-the-last-time-it-closed-its-stores-for-an-afternoon-2018-04-17).
But if Starbucks doesn't fix its image problem, Richardson said a long term boycott could cost the company more than one afternoon of revenue.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/starbucks-under-fire-after-video-surfaces-of-second-racist-incident).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
