Stop & Shop, Giant Pulling Plug On In-Store Starbucks

New England-based Stop & Shop and its sister Giant Food supermarkets are pulling the plug on an estimated 43 in-store Starbucks kiosks. “It was a business decision we arrived at with Starbucks,” Faith Weiner, a spokeswoman for Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop, was quoted as saying in a report in The Patriot Ledger. “We did a business review together, and we decided these kiosks were not performing at levels that were acceptable and would allow them to continue to operate.”

The licensed Starbucks kiosks slated to close -- 26 of which are located in Stop & Shop stores and 17 in Landover, Md.-based Giant stores -- got under way last month and are expected to be completed by mid-September. All of the kiosk employees work directly for Ahold’s Stop & Shop and/or Giant subsidiaries, said Weiner, who told the paper that all the affected employees will be offered other jobs in Stop & Shop and Giant stores.

After the closures, there will still be 56 Starbucks kiosks in Stop & Shop and Giant stores, while another five Starbucks kiosks will open in stores by year’s end. In some locations where Starbucks are closing, Stop & Shop will replace them with automated Van Houtte coffee kiosks, while in certain others, Dunkin’ Donuts kiosks remain, said Weiner, adding: “We know that customers do like to have coffee when they shop. It’s a nice convenience. We continue to try to figure out what the best way is to offer that option to customers.”
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