It seems to be a bank robbery boom time, but could robbers be targeting another ubiquitous and friendly retail operation? WNBC reports that two Starbucks locations in Manhattan were robbed in the past few weeks. The first robbery was at Broadway and West 98h Street on August 29 at 5:30 a.m., while the second was on Third Avenue at 41st around 8 p.m. this past Sunday. "In both cases, the men walked in, pulled out......

The Observer looks at "Roosevelt Island 2.0"--as in the new developments on the island. The big development Riverwalk "could bring 2,500 to 3,000 new residents to the Island" which translates to over a 25% increase in population since 2000. Roosevelt Island 360 blogger Eric Schwartzman has been documenting the addition of Riverwalk said of the chain stores finally arriving, "It very funny, where a lot of areas are like 'We already have too many Starbucks,'......

A study by the Center for an Urban Future, called Attack of the Chains? is showing that Brooklyn prefers Dunkin' Donuts over Starbucks, the Daily News reports. The center's director Jonathan Bowles says, "It has to do with different shopping culture. The Dunkin' Donuts is more a middle-class type of place than Starbucks. Not everybody can afford $4 lattes. It’s more of a working person's Starbucks." The chain has 89 outlets in Brooklyn--71 more than......

Starting today and running through Labor Day, Starbucks will be helping customers succumbing to afternoon drowsiness with a special discount. After 2 p.m., anyone who produces a receipt from a previous Starbucks purchase that morning can buy any iced grande beverage for $2. (Drinks like their grande iced latte typically costs about $4.) The new discount is part of an aggressive attempt by the faltering coffee giant – which is closing hundreds of locations and......

Others may sit passively by while New York City loses 10 of its precious 235 Starbucks, but Andrew El-Kadi, who lives above a doomed Starbucks in Bay Ridge, is making a stand. He’s turning up the heat on Starbucks by handing out flyers and starting an online petition to keep his downstairs Starbucks open, because "when you feel strongly about something, [it] doesn't have to be limited to starving children in Africa or the Israeli-Palestinian......

Starbucks has released the full list [pdf] of 600 “underperforming” locations nationwide that will close between now and mid-2009; 10 of them are in New York City, with the majority clustered in midtown, two in Queens, one on Staten Island and one in Bay Ridge. Which means we’re left with a scant 225 Starbucks citywide – so get out and support your local neighborhood Starbucks! The closings will affect some 12,000 employees – er, partners......

Two weeks after announcing it would close 600 stores, the Seattle-based coffee chain released a list of the first 50 stores that will close. A total of three in New York will close: One on Forest Avenue on Staten Island, one in Central Islip, and one is Southold. In this first round of closings, the big losers are California (8 stores will close), Texas (5), Nevada (5) and Minnesota (7).......

Last month, there were a string of accidents that left over twenty people injured and one person dead after vehicles jumped the curb and hit pedestrians, seemingly making sidewalk the most dangerous place for pedestrians. Yesterday, an accident at Broadway and West 63rd Street, a taxi cab and car crashed into each other, sending one vehicle spinning into a Starbucks and hitting a pedestrian. As far as we could gather from some witnesses, the cab......

Starbucks has announced it's closing 600 stores in the U.S., bringing the total number down to approximately 9 gazillion, most of them located in Astor Place. Stocks have fallen 24% so far this year, and its second quarter was its weakest as a public company. The Seattle-based chain says it will try to relocate employees to other stores, but thousands of layoffs loom. Financial analyst Sharon Zackfia tells the Times, “I don’t think it’s overly......

Two years ago, a jury decided that Starbucks should pay $301,000 to a customer whose feet were scalded with a hot coffee at a Midtown location. However, an Appellate Court reduced the verdict to $75,000--and Alice Griffin and her lawyer are still steaming about Starbucks' behavior. In 2004, Griffin was at a Midtown Starbucks when, as the Post describes it, a barista "pushed the loose-lidded cup toward Griffin"--"instead of simply placing the coffee on the......

In an attempt to pump up its shrinking customer base, starting today Starbucks will offer two hours of free Wi-Fi per day. Well, free for anyone who puts at least $5 onto a reloadable Starbucks Card and registers online for the Starbucks Rewards Card program. Rewards program members get other perks too: free syrup and milk options with drinks, free refills on coffee and one free beverage with the purchase of a pound of coffee......

Starbucks unveiled its new everyday coffee brew--the Pike Place Roast--in stores today. The Seattle-based chain's press release explains the new brew has "Starbucks signature bold flavor with a smoother finish balanced by soft acidity and subtle, rich flavors of cocoa and toasted nuts." Additionally, the stores indicate when the coffee was roasted and will "brew smaller batches with a hold time of no more than 30 minutes." A store in Chicago actually ran out......

In what will be the largest class action suit ever brought by New York restaurant employees, employees are suing Starbucks for violating a state law that prohibits management from receiving part of workers’ tips. At Starbucks, shift supervisors share the pooled tips with baristas, prompting a suit from former Forest Hills barista Jeana Barenboim, on behalf of at least 2,000 Starbucks baristas in NY who are owed at least $5 million. The lawsuit comes on......

With Starbucks stock plummeting – it lost half its value in the past 15 months – C.E.O. Howard Schultz spent yesterday reassuring thousands of anxious shareholders that everything would soon be right as rain, once some new changes “restore an authentic coffeehouse experience to the company’s stores,” as the Times puts it. It’s fun to watch corporations trying to “restore” authenticity, like when elderly bluebloods try dressing “casually” in their creased blue jeans. The behemoth......

Complaining about the proliferation of bank branches in New York City has almost become cliche, but City Planning officials are taking steps to enact zoning restrictions along 125th St. in Manhattan that would limit the number of bank branches on the main drag of Harlem. The idea is that bank branches can have a deadening effect on pedestrian use of a an area because they take up space that could be used for arts, entertainment,......

Whether it was a PR stunt or a legit "teach-in" on espresso, Starbucks shut down for three full hours last night to train baristas --leaving the 5:30 to 8:30pm coffee crowd out in the cold. Today they are back, with a new take on "the customer is always right" policy posted about their stores; it reads: "Your drink should be perfect, every time. If not, let us know and we'll make it right." Reportedly they'll......

Today Starbucks all over are closing for 190 caffeine-free minutes. The blackout (hold the cream and sugar) is set for 5:30pm, so be prepared for a temporary Venti Soy Latte drought. Even more disturbing for Starbuckistas, however, is the sign above. The "Dear John" letter is from an 8th Street outlet (between 5th and University) and addressed to its loyal patrons. A closing Starbucks? Creepy, indeed. As for the 8th Street regulars, looks like......

Last week there was a shooting outside of a Starbucks on 56th Street, yesterday morning a man was robbed and killed on East 39th Street, and now the NYPD is reporting that three people were stabbed near 45th and 5th at lunchtime today. There are currently some conflicting reports; WNBC says that it all went down on a sidewalk and that two people suffered stab wounds to the hand while a third was cut in......

Improv Everywhere was at it again recently. Three agents represented this time around, bringing IE's latest mission to Starbucks, where they managed to confuse fellow patrons by bringing in their old, clunky desktop computers (complete with WIndows 95!). The trio hooked up their time machines and got to work, one even able to surf the World Wide Web. For those who didn't think Starbucks had set up a computer lab as a service to their......

After the startling Midtown robbery yesterday afternoon in which a man was beaten and robbed of $149,000 in cash on the street, the police are still looking for the suspect. The victim, Seton Ijams, a music management company executive, had just visited a Chase bank, and police believe it may have been an inside job. Ijams was "jumped" by the gun-wielding robber outside the Starbucks at 120 West 56th Street and then dragged along the......

There's trouble brewin' at everyones favorite chain coffee shop. WCBS is reporting that there has been a shooting at a midtown Starbucks. The BNN confirms with a location: 120 W 56th Street, and reports a possible robbery as well. The NYPD are currently still looking for the suspect. UPDATE: The shooting took place outside of the Starbucks and WNBC is reporting that the NYPD, based on preliminary information, believes the incident was part of a......

The Battleship Potemkin, by dietrich at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a construction accident on East 33rd St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan, a pedestrian struck on 50th Ave. and 45th St. in Queens, and a shooting on Schenectady Ave. and Lincoln Pl. in Brooklyn. In three separate incidents yesterday, individuals were struck by subway trains. Two men were killed and the third was taken to Bellevue Hospital. Insurance fraud isn't brain surgery, until......

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni marvels at Manhattan’s new wave of high tone restaurant openings during a recession, and pins the trend not on entrepreneurial bravado but on the fact that it takes years to get a fancy eatery open, and most of these new places were envisioned in flusher economic times. It is true that in 2005, the top fifth of earners in Manhattan made 52 times what the lowest fifth make – $365,826......

Derek Jeter discusses his new venture - a Derek Jeter-branded 24 Hour Fitness Club in the Madison Square Park area; photograph by Tien Mao From a new NYC sports club bearing his name to the last season at Yankees Stadium, Derek Jeter has a busy year ahead of him. Gothamist asked the Yankees captain about his partnership with 24 Hour Fitness to bringing 24 Hour Fitness - Derek Jeter gyms to the city and......

Image: Bernie Hou. Sorry Reverend Billy, it’s only for three hours. For those of you who haven’t heard, all 7,100 “standalone” Starbucks in the United States will close for 180 tense, irritable minutes, starting at 5:30pm on February 26th. (That’s a Tuesday.) Now don’t let panic take over – this has nothing to do with Starbucks' "sinister Phase Two" of operations; it’s planned to facilitate the retraining of their 135,000-strong army. Come 8:30pm, this newly......

A rendering for a building that will replace a Cooper Union engineering building has emerged (above). Designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, the 440,000-square-foot mixed-use building will replace the brown tribute to banality that currently hunkers across from the historic 1859 Cooper Union Foundation building. The 51 Astor Place building is to be demolished; the fate of the connected Starbucks (between Third and Fouth Avenues) is uncertain. The Observer says the proposed building “will......

Photo by Jack McFadden. This photo, taken on 5th & Union, pretty much sums up the war going on in Brooklyn. The fictional (but not really) "Slope Trail" includes a doggie bakery, luxury condos, a gentrified playground and spot to procure pricey Brooklyn T's. Everything you'd expect on an urban hike. The stencil even includes a "controversial" stroller being pushed by a parent (or nanny!) who is clearly holding a Starbucks coffee. We just......

Wouldn’t be caught dead with a “latte” from Starbucks or a Coolata from Dunkin Donuts? Well, you haven’t reached the summit of coffee snobbery until you’ve had the self-proclaimed “ultimate” cup of coffee, expertly prepared by computers and pneumatic tubes at the Lower East Side’s Roasting Plant. Since opening last spring, business has been hopping at the sleek Orchard Street café; coffee aficionados are drawn back as much for the fresh coffee as for......

Anthony Lappé is a writer, blogger, television producer and executive editor of GNN.tv, the web site for the Guerrilla News Network. He's written for mainstream press like the Times and was the National Affairs Editor for Black Book, and in 2003 he collaborated on the award-winning Showtime documentary about Iraq called BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire’s Edge, which covered the front lines of the simmering guerrilla war in Iraq in 2003. Part of what......

A Times article on the popularity of “fast-casual” restaurants continues to cause some major head scratching. In straightforward expansionist news, the article reported that the Five Guys burger chain plan on opening 29 new local outlets in the next 8 years, and Hale and Hearty is busy putting the finishing touches on its 20,000 square foot Williamsburg production facility. But the trend spotting that motivated the article remains dubious. Ostensibly about “fast-casual” restaurants – defined......