Supposedly the new CEO is aware the decline of Starbucks as a third place is an issue, but we'll see if anything changes. The business perspective of just doing drive-through and pick-up sounds great, but it loses the "experience" that made Starbucks revolutionary. If Starbucks coffee just turns into a transaction, I'm not sure how they can survive when Dunkin, McDonalds, and even Keurig do transactions better, and all sorts of local coffee shops do coffee better.
I spend a lot of money at Starbucks, but very little time. I think Starbucks’ brand was built when it was the opposite; now it’s just a commodity. The value is still there — get a reliable coffee extremely fast, and my toddler loves their egg bites which is a huge value in and of itself — but it’s not so much more valuable than Dunkin’ anymore.
