In 2018, Starbucks made an incredibly stupid mistake. After two black men were arrested for refusing to leave a Philadelphia location, the company adopted a posture of total shame. It publicly apologized and announced that it would be closing all locations nationwide for the sake of “racial bias training.” It fired the white employee who had called the police.
Henceforth, the company said, people would not need to be a paying customer to use its cafes or bathrooms. In a letter to employees, it said that any person “who enters our spaces” would be deemed a customer.
Shockingly, the policy turned out to be terrible. Homeless people responded by using Starbucks cafes as the place to spend their days.
At the Starbucks I attempted to frequent last fall in Atlanta, a large portion of the cafe’s tables were occupied by homeless people. There were so many homeless people it was hard to find a seat. The large table at the entrance, which I deemed “the homeless table,” was filled with homeless people sitting there with no Starbucks food or drinks. (One day, a lady did have a Wendy’s breakfast, though.)
The chairs near the window were likewise wholly occupied with homeless people. Occasionally, an employee would walk around and wake up the various homeless people, telling them that they could stay so long as they weren’t asleep. One time when I was writing in that Starbucks, a homeless man (without any Starbucks beverage) sat at the table next to me and stared at me the whole time I was there.
Anyway, I stopped going to the “homeless Starbucks” and chose different businesses that didn’t show such disregard for their paying customers.
But at the end of last month, Starbucks announced that it would be eliminating its policy of welcoming non-paying people as “customers.” Going forward, it would ask such people to leave its stores, and call the police if they refused.
The policy was rolled out as part of Starbucks’ new “Coffeehouse Code of Conduct,” which begins by stating, “We want to ensure our spaces are prioritized for use by our customers.” The code of conduct is now hung in every store.
Though it was framed as an effort to make the stores more welcoming — and it certainly is that — the change came at a moment of DEI backlash. I’m sure Starbucks had been desperate to do away with its “racial sensitivity” policy, but had avoided doing so for fear of being perceived as racist.
I didn’t believe Starbucks’ new policy would actually be enforced, mostly because the Starbucks close to me had been filled with so many homeless people. But I decided to test out the policy. This afternoon, I went back to the Starbucks I hadn’t been back to for months because of its homelessness problem. When I walked in, I thought, Where is everyone? Whereas that store had previously been filled with mostly non-paying “customers,” it now had only four other customers, all of whom toted drinks purchased from Starbucks. “Here’s your drink, Ellie,” a barista told me — a new touch employees are supposed to use as part of making the stores more welcoming.
I answered some emails for 30 minutes or so, and there wasn’t a homeless person in sight. This can’t last, I thought. Just as I was about to leave, a homeless man (with his pants hanging down nearly to his knees) busted through the door, screaming out gibberish. Immediately, a Starbucks manager wearing a red shirt rushed up to the man and told him, “You need to leave.” In short order, the man was gone.
Starbucks, your coffee is poor at best, but thank you for no longer being a homeless destination. Perhaps you’ve found one major reason your business was cratering and your customers were leaving in droves.
Maybe show your commitment to your customers — and your rejection of racial insanity — by apologizing to Shannon Phillips, the employee who was fired for seeking to create a better environment for Starbucks customers.
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