You likely heard the news about a 12,000 person reduction in employees and the closing of some 600 stores. (Seattle Times) Florida and California will be most impacted; they've been hard hit by the economy and credit crisis. Also, "About 200 of those will be directly operated by Starbucks, with the rest managed by other companies like bookstores and airport concession firms."

I try to make sense of the "too close together" aspect of this story from the land of Dunkin Donuts. Here in my city we hold a large 4 mile race on Thanksgiving. The course passes four Dunkin Donuts and that's far from all the ones we have! We have, to my knowledge, just two Starbucks. Dunkin Donuts, either by design or luck, doesn't seem to have the cannibalism problem. I have a hunch about that.

It's my sense that Dunkin Donuts is far more about "take out." The stores here are notoriously near bus stops and many have parking lots of key commuting routes. Besides, when was the last time you spent much time in a Dunkin Donuts? Starbucks, while it does have a good take out business (which is why I find the closing airport Starbucks odd), is about that mythical third place, the one that's not home or work. It's business is centered around "hanging out in a nice place." Dunkin Donuts surely is not (our local stores often have a sign stating how long patrons may stay - typically 20-30 minutes). If that's all true, it seems you'd travel less for a take out coffee/donut, than for a "sit and enjoy" environment of Starbucks. It seems Starbucks was not thinking that way and taking advantage of human behavior.