When Starbucks opened more than 20 years ago, a half a block from my house, all the neighbors agreed that we’d arrived. That’s what Starbucks signified back then. That the neighborhood around Roosevelt and Wabash was desirable, stable and one that anyone would want to live in.
Our Starbucks closed a few weeks ago after a nice life at Wabash and Roosevelt. And no one knew what was going on. Was it over and done? Even though we still have a Sweet Bean, a Stan’s and a Dunkin’ within a stone’s throw.
It was always the place to meet your friends for coffee. Like after we power-walked in the morning. It didn’t even matter that our Starbucks never had a public restroom because if we had to go, we just walked home to use our own facilities. And then came right back.
My house was the closest one to our Starbucks. But no one was very far. And we were probably as close as the restroom in a much bigger Starbucks that had a restroom way across the store. It was probably closer and faster to go home from ours—instead of across a much bigger Starbucks.
Actually, it was after one of those power walks with a couple of friends that I realized that our Starbucks was destined to die. I’d been going there for years in the morning after our walk/talk/sightsee/spying time with my two girlfriends and I always paid with the same credit card that I kept in my pocket. The card and my keys were the only things I had.
One morning, an older male barista refused to take my card unless I showed him my ID. My card wasn’t signed. Nope, I said. “This is how I travel in the morning while walking with my friends. And I’v been a customer here for many years. Everyone recognizes me. And if you make a big deal out of this I am going to Dunkin.’”
Which I did. For a while. When I saw through the window he wasn’t there anymore, I started back up.
Starbucks was perfect for so many things. From a quick wedding shower gift of two cute cups and an array of freshly ground coffee to accompany that. To popping in before a birthday party and filling up a nic gift card for the celebrant.
It was perfect to meet up for a heart to heart, or to meet a colleague to discuss a project—or to get together with someone who was coming downtown that you hadn’t seen for a while, but you didn’t want them to see the inside of your house before maid-day. It was a perfect meet-up place. Everyone liked it.
And in nice weather, it was a perfect meet-up place outside. Until one day, I realized that the tables and chairs that always came out in the Spring—and placed under a concrete canopy and several big trees—weren’t there.
“How come the tables and chairs aren’t out yet?” I asked.
“We aren’t putting them out anymore,” I was told. “Because homeless people take them over.”
I never saw that happen during the day. At night, it may have been different
And yet, any homeless person who wanted to come in with an empty cup was poured free coffee. Which seemed unsanitary to me. Free coffee was OK, and free cream and sugar, but not free cups?
Why are they punishing us by taking away the outdoor seating area? I wondered. I never remembered anyone hogging the outdoor seats like some did the cream. And sugar. For their brought-in cups.
The outdoor seating never came back.
And then there was the big brouhaha in Philadelphia. When men came to Starbucks for a meeting, but didn’t buy any coffee—and the police got involved. Starbucks was being used as a community center quite often around the country, the story revealed. But wasn’t that the point of a Starbucks in every neighborhood? And so what if some didn’t buy coffee? They were giving a lot away free.
The bad publicity was really bad for Starbucks.. And our Starbucks was one that paid the price. The inside tables were removed. And even the wide counters in front of the windows—that could be leaned on, or sat at, over coffee and conversation—were taken out. They were replaced with ledges just wide enough to set down a paper cup for a second to put in some cream and sugar. There was nowhere to balance a purse or a brief case. No one was welcome to sit a spell.
Of course that made plenty of room to accommodate the long lines of customers that the baristas used to have to organize to slither around the tables and chairs. Often puzzling and irritating customers not familiar with our Starbucks’ customs and layout. The line did give us customers a chance to peruse the bags of coffee and the cute cups as we went by, though, in case anyone was in the market for a shower gift.
Anyway, that’s when I started buying Starbucks Keurig cups on sale at the neighborhood Walgreen’s and Jewel-Osco, on either side of the Starbucks. That was it for me. Other than a big bag of interesting ground coffee beans that I did go in and buy for my never-used but long owned French press—for a little variety during the pandemic..
My South Loop Starbucks wasn’t the first Starbucks I lived a half a block away from. One of the first Starbucks in Downtown Chicago was one that opened in an enclosed mall a half block from our then apartment about 35 years ago.
My husband used to go there every morning and bring it home for us. I sure looked forward to his service and the coffee. And from then until now—with the Starbucks Keurig cups every morning—I have loved Starbucks coffee.
And even though I didn’t like the setup of the Starbucks near my house when it changed to strictly carryout, I always liked that it was there. Just in case.
When its recent demise became undeniable, the rumors flew as to why. Some (hopefully) conjectured that it was turning remote—where customers could text in their order and pick it up at a window.
But it wasn’t.
Some suggested it was hit by a car in the rear and was waiting for reconstruction on the back wall. But there was no sign of any damage in the back whatsoever.
Some said it was being remodeled—maybe with a bathroom this time, and the re-introduction of tables and chairs for both inside and outside again. There was no sign of that either.
I finally talked to a cop who was investigating a gun murder on the street across from the house of one of my neighbors, and I asked him if he knew what the story of our neighborhood Starbucks was.
Crime, he said. “They would go in with guns and demand money. There was a shot in the window. And no one wanted to work there anymore. They couldn’t get anyone to work there. The people who worked there just had it They didn’t feel safe.”
So no remodeling or remaking on the horizon for our Starbucks on a corner of the neighborhood that had plenty of customers in the middle of a thriving neighborhood and a transportation hub.
Our Starbucks died a slow death. It went through stage after stage that signified the end could come someday. It probably began dying the day it opened.
And that was that. And the way we all felt when Starbucks came—that our neighborhood had arrived—slid backwards—and we came undone.
"Nobody was welcome to sit down" turned so easily to "nobody was welcome." In a crowded shop of any sort, the customers can be some sort of witnesses. This time, I know you're poignant.
Bonnie, I sympathize with this loss. It’s not even my favorite coffee anymore, and yet it’s always been such an important part of my business traveling life. With that, are so many fond memories. I don’t even really like pumpkin spice lattes, but sure enough every fall I drink them. The thought of not having a Starbucks nearby feels like the end of a civilization. It seems as though they are the stalwarts of… Well if not a nation, a bunch of people who think they are really important. I am one of them.