Starbucks opens shop
Jackie Kinealy/Index Junior Christian Grandon serves a caramel macchiato, the shop’s most popular drink, Wednesday afternoon.
Northeast Regional Medical Center opened a Starbucks in the gift shop March 3, but some are disappointed in the products.
Billy Holloway, Director of Food and Nutrition, said business already has been impressive without advertising but instead through word-of-mouth in the community, especially by students and hospital employees.
“With 500 employees you’re going to have a lot more traffic in-house, but when you have a student that goes into the library with a Starbucks coffee, you immediately have 10 or 15 students coming back over,” Holloway said. “Starbucks really speaks for itself, and I think it’s really important that we stick with the brand and the concepts that they built their coffees on instead of trying to make a dollar really quick and do it wrong.”
Although the gift shop is small, it still offers the most popular Starbucks items, he said.
“We had corporate trainers come in from Starbucks to show the importance of the flavors and the different combos,” Holloway said. “It needs to taste the same here as it does in Seattle.”
Although Starbucks has a loyal customer community, Holloway said he doesn’t think Kirksville’s local coffee shops will be affected by the new location.
“I am local and I hope that there’s no animosity being built,” Holloway said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem because I am sure they have their specialties as well as Starbucks.”
Gabe Parker, Costa Rican Café manager, said he’s not worried about losing business to Starbucks.
“I do not expect to see much loss from it, mainly because obviously we are selling good coffee but also we have the restaurant atmosphere,” Parker said. “I think people enjoy that.”
He said Costa Rican Café has an even mix of customers, with about half of the business coming from A.T. Still University and Truman students and half coming from the general public.
Sophomore Michael Smith said his biggest frustration with the gift shop café is that they don’t provide the regular selection that a “normal” Starbucks would. He said they lack some students’ favorite options like frappuccinos.
Smith said that when he ordered an iced venti Red Eye, the workers didn’t know what it was, had to look it up and still made his drink incorrectly.
“I think that just about any coffee place in Kirksville is 10 times better,” he said.
Filed Under: News • Off campus
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