In this era of “hyper-gentrification,” New Yorkers have a fraught relationship with Starbucks. In Brooklyn, Williamsburg residents greeted the company’s arrival, in 2014, with sneers. (“It’s only a chain store with bad coffee,” the performance artist Reverend Billy said.) Two years ago, East Villagers held a rally protesting the company’s new location on St. Mark’s Place. Signs read “Not another Starbucks!”
Recently, a different sort of petition has been circulating online. Titled “Keep Our Very Special Starbucks Open,” the petition, which has garnered more than four hundred and fifty signatures, implores the company not to abandon a struggling store at the corner of Seventy-sixth Street and Columbus Avenue. Starbucks has fourteen other Upper West Side locations, but the petition argues that this one is different. It challenges the company’s C.E.O., Kevin Johnson, to look beyond performance metrics and consider its “community value.”
A couple of Fridays ago, the petition’s three co-authors sat at a pair of café tables just inside the store’s entrance. Tourists trickled in from the American Museum of Natural History, across the street. An espresso machine whirred, drowning out a Mary J. Blige song.
“Who tries to save a Starbucks?” Michael Schertz asked. A soft-spoken entrepreneur, he lives on West Seventy-fourth Street. He wore a button-down shirt and slacks and cradled a mug of black coffee. “I looked on the Internet. All the stories are ‘Save our store from Starbucks.’ ”
Teddy Cohn, a writer with a blog called Random Acts of Commentary, added, “It’s with great ambivalence that I’m actively in defense of a Starbucks.” Cohn, who lives on West Seventy-sixth Street, was sipping a coffee with whole milk. He wore a beanie and a T-shirt bearing a red “X.” “I don’t like corporate brands,” he went on. But, with the Seventy-sixth Street location, Starbucks “happened to hatch a messiah child, and they decided to kill it.”
“Mason?” a barista bellowed, placing a drink on the counter.
Ethan Schneider looked thoughtfully at a thermos of water. “It’s sort of like a cultural node,” he said, of the store. Schneider, who has long ginger hair and goes by the moniker Central Park Yogi, sleeps on the steps of a nearby church. “For me, it’s a form of activism,” he said, of his living conditions.
The trio explained how they’d met. Six years ago, Schertz was in the Starbucks, working on a business plan, when he struck up a conversation with Cohn about basketball and, later, politics. (Schertz is conservative, Cohn liberal.) Soon, Schertz began sitting with Cohn at his regular writing spot: the bar stools along the counter.
Schneider joined them six months ago. He describes himself as a “freegan,” meaning he eats food that others have thrown away. He typically spends several hours a day in the Starbucks, using his phone or laptop to work on activism projects. They formed a kind of salon. Lately, Schertz said, they’d been discussing the meaning of the word “customer.” “A customer isn’t just someone who buys something,” he said. “A customer is someone who embraces the customs of the environment.”
Cohn said, “I’ve met people here who are rich bankers, and homeless people who are embraced. I’ve met people who are ‘jock’ kind of guys, and transgender people. And I’ve never seen anyone hassled because they’re not buying another latte.”
“Julia?” the barista called, putting another drink on the counter.
On January 2nd, Cohn said, he noticed the staff members talking in low voices. “They were saying, ‘Oh, my God, who’s going to tell Teddy?’ And they sent over this brave, young, sweet Honduran guy that I love, named Anthony, and he manned up”—Cohn puffed out his chest—“and he said, ‘Teddy, we’re closing on January 31st.’ And they all started crying.”
The regulars sprang into action. “I was, like, well, moping isn’t going to do us any good,” Schneider said. They created the petition. Schertz ordered five hundred cards asking people to sign it, and left them in the restroom and on the counter. Many signatories have shared their own memories of the Starbucks. One, Cynthia Weidner, recalled stopping by during a difficult time in her life. She ordered a Rev Up tea with steamed soy milk; it arrived with cold soy milk. “You could see there was no froth,” she said. Sensing that something was amiss, the barista caught her mistake and made Weidner a fresh beverage. Weidner had to wipe away tears. “They really cared,” she said.
In the store, Cohn waved over the shift manager, a woman named Cas, who was wearing a knit cap. “She’s one of my dearest, nearest,” he said, and they hugged. Cas said that she was transferring to a Starbucks downtown, noting, “It’s sad, because we made this a family.”
“Vincent?” the barista yelled.
Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesman, confirmed last week that the company knew about the petition, and said, “We recognize that the store is special to our customers.” But it would still be closing. He added, “There’s a nearby store on Seventy-third and Columbus, less than a three-minute walk away.”
Cohn, Schertz, and Schneider scoffed at the mention of the Seventy-third Street Starbucks. “It’s a hellhole,” Schertz said. ♦
