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Starbucks abandoning its pastry experiment, closing ALL La Boulange shops

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Rootbeer

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Announced during the Warriors finale... surely not in hopes that it slips through unnoticed here in the Bay Area right!

If you live in San Francisco you are used to seeing the beautifully designed La Boulange cafes scattered around the city serving amazing lunches and great espresso drinks. Starbucks bought them a few years ago and now is closing all of them down. After September, they are all gone. 23 stores and 2 bakeries.

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Early on, investors questioned the wisdom of operating a small, separate retail brand, though the stores enjoyed a cultlike following in the Bay Area. At the time of the acquisition, Starbucks said it planned to open more La Boulange cafes in major U.S. cities. But the company recently completed an analysis of its stores and determined that “the La Boulange cafes are not a sustainable model for Starbucks long term,” Mr. Burrows said.
Source (Wall Street Journal)
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Three years after Starbucks Corp.’s acquisition of the San Francisco-based La Boulange bakery chain, the coffee company is closing all 23 pastry shops.
Instead, Starbucks will focus on expanding the baked goods under the La Boulange brand in its coffee outlets. La Boulange’s pastries and breakfast sandwiches have helped grow Starbucks’ food sales, according to a statement released by Starbucks Tuesday night. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2015, food delivered growth of 16 percent year-over-year. The La Boulange brand will remain attached to the food offerings in Starbucks stores, but the coffee giant does not want to continue running the separate La Boulange stores, which are located mostly around San Francisco.
source
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In short... they are going to continue using the La Boulange brand to market the pastries sold in Starbucks stores... but no longer actually operate any of the real locations that are so adored in the Bay Area. Just lovely, thanks Starbucks!

La Boulange, I will miss you!
 
Bleepey said:
Was this just buying and crushing out the competition?
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in the SF area, they were definitely an expanding brand. After acquiring them, the founder helped Starbucks to refresh their own pastry menu. Apart from that... I don't know what Starbucks really gained from buying them. And now they'll all be closed... really sad for the community here, IMO.

Starbucks is also going to close their Evolution Juice shop here in SF, though the ones in Washington will remain open. That's detailed in the article, too.
 
When the acquisition happened, the idea of a focus on bakery items at Starbucks stores was exciting but I gotta question if there's been any real impact besides incorporating the brand.

The products are still small, pricey items delivered from who knows where, possibly frozen. Hot items are just nuked, cool items sit and get stale, and they've tended to be sold out when I actually wanted something.
 
Starbucks is used to charging $5 for coffee, and I haven't been to these places because I'm not in the Bay Area, but it doesn't sound like their margins were as high.
 
Never seen the actual stores themselves but the "La Boulange" branding and items have done nothing for me in terms of wanting to buy food at Starbucks.

Like Grifter said, it tastes exactly the same as their old frozen-shipped-microwaved crap and it's still ridiculously priced. In Canada, it's like $2.65 or something for a small slice of coffee cake. Yeah, no thanks.
 
I was gonna say I loved their sandwiches... but now I'm not sure if it's La Boulange or Le Boulanger that I'm thinking of.
 
I appreciated the vast number of sandwich shops in San Fran although I don't think I saw any of this chain. I absolutely love a good sandwich, and Austin sadly is lacking in these for some reason.

By the way -- CB passed along the hello, Cyan!
 
Junior Mint said:
Never seen the actual stores themselves but the "La Boulange" branding and items have done nothing for me in terms of wanting to buy food at Starbucks.

Like Grifter said, it tastes exactly the same as their old frozen-shipped-microwaved crap and it's still ridiculously priced. In Canada, it's like $2.65 or something for a small slice of coffee cake. Yeah, no thanks.
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Just want to say the actual pastries in real La Boulange cafés are way nicer. The ones at Starbucks are merely inspired by them.
 
Meier said:
I appreciated the vast number of sandwich shops in San Fran although I don't think I saw any of this chain. I absolutely love a good sandwich, and Austin sadly is lacking in these for some reason.

By the way -- CB passed along the hello, Cyan!
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:D
 
That sucks!

I wonder if some of the managers have already left Starbucks (since there is still an independent coffee and bakery boom in SF, and both Blue Bottle and Tartine [merged] are expanding to Tokyo and other cities.)
 
Cyan said:
I was gonna say I loved their sandwiches... but now I'm not sure if it's La Boulange or Le Boulanger that I'm thinking of.
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Wait, they're different? I had no idea until now. I think I like Le Boulanger which looks like it's not the one getting shut down.
 
Wow this made me realize that the whole time I'd been confusing La Boulange, which is now closing, with Le Boulanger, which is not.
 
All the new La Boulange food they sell at Starbucks are just smaller more expensive versions of the older food, it sucks
 
PassiveObserver said:
Starbucks never charged $5 for coffee. Drip coffee is 1.80 a cup. Starbuck charges $5 for milkshakes.
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Yeah, I wish people would stop perpetuating this stupid ass myth. Starbucks is like 10c more than McDonald's for a regular ass coffee. They have more expensive, fancy drinks just like McDonald's has more expensive, fancy drinks.
 
Zulithe said:
I don't know what Starbucks really gained from buying them.
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As Bleepy noted... they killed a competitor. If they could strangle Tim Horton and Dunkin Donuts, they'd do it in a heartbeat. Those economies of scale are out of their reach. But, city-size franchises are within reach. Don't cash the check, Shipley's.
 
Grifter said:
When the acquisition happened, the idea of a focus on bakery items at Starbucks stores was exciting but I gotta question if there's been any real impact besides incorporating the brand.

The products are still small, pricey items delivered from who knows where, possibly frozen. Hot items are just nuked, cool items sit and get stale, and they've tended to be sold out when I actually wanted something.
Click to expand...


It's so great ordering banana bread or a bagel and you see them get it from a box behind the window, take it out of its air tight plastic wrap and hand it to you like it's fresh. Such a scam
 
Zulithe said:
Just want to say the actual pastries in real La Boulange cafés are way nicer. The ones at Starbucks are merely inspired by them.
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Not just 'inspired by.'

The entire point behind the La Boulange purpose was to use their skill to try to revamp Starbucks's pastry/food program, because La Boulange did a pretty good job of making high-quality pastry while still using centralized (and therefore scalable) production. The new food program ended up being rather poorly received. The acquisition's been a disaster but it absolutely wasn't about elimination of the competition.
 
The article states that sales of food are up. It sounds like Starbucks is not displeased with their efforts to help revamp the food. I've heard some people don't like the changes, but sales speak otherwise.

Anyway this is besides the point that the food at La Boulange is different and way way better, pastries included. It's on an entirely different level.

Starbucks isn't happy with their margins I imagine, because they serve higher quality food and drinks at comparable prices (where applicable.) They could have chosen to spin it off... but now SF will be short 23 great cafes instead. To me this is as much a local issue as it is a Starbucks corporate issue, the later I am less invested in.

Will all 23 locations be converted into Starbucks? I can see some of them doing that, but it may not be possible due to zoning rules and such. A lot of neighborhoods don't want national chains setting up shop and changing the atmosphere.

If you're near San Fran, check them out before they are gone in September.
 
Zulithe said:
The article states that sales of food are up. It sounds like Starbucks is not displeased with their efforts to help revamp the food. I've heard some people don't like the changes, but sales speak otherwise.

Anyway this is besides the point that the food at La Boulange is different and way way better, pastries included. It's on an entirely different level.

Starbucks isn't happy with their margins I imagine, because they serve higher quality food and drinks at comparable prices (where applicable.) They could have chosen to spin it off... but now SF will be short 23 great cafes instead. To me this is as much a local issue as it is a Starbucks corporate issue, the later I am less invested in.

Will all 23 locations be converted into Starbucks? I can see some of them doing that, but it may not be possible due to zoning rules and such. A lot of neighborhoods don't want national chains setting up shop and changing the atmosphere.

If you're near San Fran, check them out before they are gone in September.
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We were so close to reasonably good kouign amann being available nationwide ;_;
 
badcrumble said:
We were so close to reasonably good kouign amann being available nationwide ;_;
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We already Do. Trader joes sells them amd their good. While I've never had them in frane,their pain au Chocolat and croissants are good enough for my french wife and I. So assume their kouign amann are just as good as authentic ones.
 
Zulithe said:
Will all 23 locations be converted into Starbucks? I can see some of them doing that, but it may not be possible due to zoning rules and such. A lot of neighborhoods don't want national chains setting up shop and changing the atmosphere..
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they were having b1g1 free after 4pm offers for the past few months. I guess business was down. I'm guessing they will be sold off and converted to whatever. There's always space for new restaurants in SF. We can't get enough of $20 beet salads :)
 
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