Welcome to the CulinaryWoman Newsletter! Sending thoughts to any of our readers who have been in the path of Hurricane Ian. I hope you are safe and getting the support you need. Also sending wishes for a blessed fast to our Jewish friends, celebrating Yom Kippur this week.
This is the free edition of the newsletter. Paid subscribers get even more features, such as Red Beans and Advice on Monday, The Conversation on Tuesday and they are automatically eligible for giveaways (scroll down for an exciting new one).
Just click here to upgrade and thanks for your support.
Starbucks Is Determined To Keep Growing
This week, I drove down Canal Street and passed a Starbucks that soon will not be there anymore. Starbucks is closing its store in the heart of New Orleans’ busiest tourist areas.
It says it can’t guarantee the safety of its staff amid random crime and homelessness, which to be fair, are problems here and in many urban centers.
But there are suspicions locally that the store is closing because employees tried to organize a union. Starbucks fired the union leader at another shop here that did organize. Also, Starbucks faces a lot of coffee competition in New Orleans, especially from local chains like French Truck, CC’s Coffee House, Cafe du Monde and PJ’s Coffee, and it may want to bow out of that location for that reason, too.
Still, Starbucks has an aggressive growth plan that may mean some of you will see even more stores.
Strong business, frustrating waits
Like so many chains that depend on office workers, Starbucks’ customer visits took a huge hit during the pandemic. They plummeted in the depths of stay at home orders across the country, rebounded as things opened up, then plunged again when Omicron hit. However, a report by Placer.ai shows that Starbucks’ business is now up 2.6 percent from January 2019. That’s “an impressive showing, given the economic climate,” wrote analyst R.J. Hottovy.
Starbucks is actually frustrated that it can’t keep up with customer expectations. “One of our challenges today is that we’re not able to meet the capacity of demand that is coming through our stores,” said Brady Brewer, chief marketing officer at Starbucks. Long wait times and lines are one of the culprits keeping potential customers from visiting Starbucks.
I am among them. Compared with the past few years, I rarely visit Starbucks as often as I once did. Even though its app is supposed to cut waiting time, I still encounter long drive-thru lines just to get up to the order board. It’s been weeks since I spared the time to roll by. It simply wasn’t worth it this summer to burn $4.39 a gallon gas when I could make something at home.
Small format stores
Staffing has become a major issue for Starbucks, as well as other food chains. (It might help if the company didn’t bully its union organizers.) To evade that headache, Starbucks increasingly is moving to “small format stores,” which require fewer people to run.
These are only 400 square feet versus the old-school Starbucks, which typically needs 2,000 square feet. Think of the Starbucks you’ve seen in your grocery store or a Target - simply a counter with no seating.
Placer looked at a sample of these mini-Starbucks over the past 12 months, and found small format stores saw around 15% more visitors per square meter than the regular locations. “By optimizing store size and focusing on automation, Starbucks should see a more efficient reach in key markets,” Placer wrote.
A focus on middle markets
It’s hard to believe there is a corner of the country that isn’t already populated by Starbucks. There are 14,000 U.S. stores out of 28,000 worldwide. But Starbucks sees opportunities in the Midwest and the Southeast. Starbucks says it can boost visits in those markets.
Nationally, visits to Starbucks stores make up 7.3 percent of all restaurant customers, Placer estimates (isn’t that an amazing statistic?) But visits to Louisville, Memphis, and Knoxville Starbucks locations made up only 5 percent of their restaurant customers, and Cincinnati and Indianapolis stores made up just 3.2 percent of all restaurant visits.
Keep your eye on the middle of the country, then, to see what Starbucks has planned. Just don’t count on getting your drink on Canal Street.
We Have A Winner For Bread Head
The winner of Bread Head by Greg Wade is Mark Remillard! I hope you have subscribed to Mark’s newsletter, MJR News (those are his initials and are meant to be pronounced “major” as in “major news”). Mark’s work for ABC News Radio honed his deep interest in criminal justice, so much that he is planning to attend law school.
Mark also likes to eat - something we all share - and as readers know, he’s one half of “the Marks” with my friend Marc Stewart. This week, Marc began work as a correspondent with CNN. So, congratulations to Mark with a “k” for winning Bread Head and to Marc with a “c” for his new job.
Win Pour Me Another by J.M. Hirsch
That leads us to our next giveaway. It’s Pour Me Another: 250 Ways To Find Your Favorite Drink, by J.M. Hirsch. He is the editorial director of 177 Milk Street, the media portfolio created by Christopher Kimball. Pour Me Another, which goes on sale Tuesday, follows Jason’s wonderfully entertaining cocktail guide, Shake, Strain, Done.
This time, Jason has used a fun format for his cocktail recipes: pick a type of liquor, and he’ll recommend numerous ways to use it. These are the suggestions for gin, for instance.
I know people who made a different cocktail every night during stay at home, and I’m sure they would love Pour Me Another. It’s a terrific way to get full use out of your half opened spirits.
It’s not too early to be thinking about holiday gifts, and this would be a wonderful present for a housewarming party. I can envision both of Jason’s books forming the nucleus of a bar library.
I have one copy of Pour Me Another to give away to a paid subscriber of The CulinaryWoman Newsletter. The book will come to the winner directly from Milk Street.
If you are already a paid subscriber, you are automatically entered. You can upgrade your subscription by clicking this button. Even more giveaways are in the works, so your chances are terrific.
Meanwhile, you can pre-order Jason’s book here and please let me know if you try any of his recipes. I’m going to test out some zero alcohol versions myself.
What I’m Writing
I had a lively response to my Washington Post column last week about the resurgence of the middle of the country. I’m always entertained when readers take something I’ve written and get into their own debates about it in Comments.
We can all agree, though, that America isn’t only the East and West coasts. The rest of us have a lot to contribute.
Be sure to check your local public radio station for Jeremy Hobson’s upcoming series, The Middle. It begins airing Oct. 19.
Have you noticed those big fruit trucks, toting boxes of peaches, Satsuma oranges and apples to different parts of the country? I wrote some tips for The Takeout in case you’re thinking about buying from them.
I’ve had fruit from The Peach Truck and thought it was tasty, but I still want to support local growers, too. Yet, if you crave a perfectly ripe piece of fruit and are stuck with the plastic wrapped supermarket variety, you may want to spring for a truck’s offerings.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
I am excited about my upcoming appearances in Indianapolis, Detroit and Toledo for Satisfaction Guaranteed. Please check the calendar on my website. I’d love to meet you and sign your book.
You can reach me at CulinaryWoman at gmail dot com. I’m on Instagram @michelinemaynard and my New Orleans adventures are @micki_in_nola. Last week, my manicurist tipped me off to the Tofu House, a shop here that makes a variety of fresh tofu, crafts banh mi, and sells delicious sugar cane juice.
You can follow the CulinaryWoman Facebook page and @culinarywoman on Twitter.
Please have a safe week. I’ll see our paid subscribers through the week, and everyone else next Sunday.