mbaglio100

Coffee Prices and Starbucks Stock

"But here’s the bottom line: Starbucks, while in the coffee business, is really in the restaurant business, and the restaurant business is and always has been about real estate."

No. The restaurant business is and always has been about quality of product and quality of service. It's the bean counters who believe otherwise who are to blame for the stocks horrible showing over the last several months.

As you say, Starbucks "product" wasn't so much the coffee but the "experience". Well, _everyone_ who's been a customer for years knows that the "experience" isn't worth the price or the hassle. The stores are cruddier than ever, and what used to be a "hand-crafted" "preimium" beverage has turned into just another cup of slop. The employees aren't trained like they used to be, and it shows.

I am, and will continue to be, short SBUX, because they haven't been able to admit to themselves that they've diluted everything customers valued in the "experience", and therefore they've diluted their stock.

You can argue that milk costs too much, but get real here-- since when is SBUX supposed to be an agricultural play? It's a food/beverage server. It's the sucky beverage and suckier service that needs fixing.

Attention to anything else will only insure my shorts make me even more money as, (Helicopter Ben's interest rate finagle-ing notwithstanding), SBUX heads toward $9.