Where have all the chairs gone? This is why many Starbucks locations in downtown San Francisco have no seating

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Where have all the chairs gone? It was a question asked by an employee of the Standard during a recent morning editorial meeting. She was referring to the Starbucks on the corner of Stockton and Sutter Streets, near Union Square.

Inhabited by a lone high-topped table and a narrow bar with no stools, the place seemed to only offer take-away services, although the cafe floor was clearly large enough to accommodate the tables and chairs.

She wasn’t the only one in our newsroom who ran into a sit-down Starbucks in town. A few months ago, I encountered a very similar scene at 1390 Market Street, where one day I went in for hot chocolate and couldn’t find a place to sit and drink it.

Since we journalists can be quite cynical, we wondered if the removal of chairs from these places was a corporate strategy to keep homeless people from hanging out in cafes. Or perhaps it was a monetary solution to get more coffee drinkers and their dollars to move through the shops faster.

We reached out to the king of corporate coffee to find out why some local Starbucks locations no longer seem to offer seating, and to ask if this is a growing trend at the company.

Here’s what Starbucks had to say: Cafes located at 264 Kearny St., 442 Geary St. and 1390 Market St., are for distribution only and are designed as such.

“This is a store model,” a Starbucks spokesperson said.

Starbucks locations at 390 Stockton Street, 462 Powell Street, 865 Market Street, 780 Market Street and 359 Grant Avenue removed cafe seats over a year ago in response to Covid public health protocols, continued representative explaining the decision. in polished PR language:

“At that time, Starbucks was empowering local leaders to adjust operations to reflect local Covid-19 factors in the interest of prioritizing the health and wellbeing of our partners and customers,” a spokesperson said. “So the change continues to work for partners and customers, as well as for local [Starbucks] the leaders just didn’t change it.”

As for our more cynical questions about keeping homeless San Francisco residents out of Starbucks stores and trying to stop even paying customers from hanging out for too long, the spokesperson insisted the seating shortage was just a Covid-era change that hasn’t yet been reversed. . .

So, will Starbucks be bringing chairs back to these places anytime soon?

This was above the salary level of the press secretary we interviewed. However, a spokesperson said the company is trying to listen to local partners and customers to “create a warm, welcoming environment for everyone.”

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