Diedrich Coffee to sell most of its 47 company-owned stores to Starbucks

Gourmet coffee retailer Diedrich Coffee plans to close all of its Diedrich Coffee and Coffee People company-owned locations and sell about 47 of them to Starbucks for about $13.5 million. Diedrich plans to keep the brands for its wholesale and franchise operations. (Associated Press | Diedrich press release)

Comments

[Andrew]

Thats kind of irronic...back in the mid 90s gloria jeans (a branch of ddrx) would copy everything that starbucks did in their stores in terms of store design and other things. Now it doesnt matter cause starbucks will own them and probably revamp the stores to the new starbucks store designs...

[DT]

actually in the press release it says that GJ franchisees will not be affected, but then it says they'll have a stronger company to work with, does that mean that these GJ mall locations or whatever will become pseudo-Starbucks-franchisees?

[coffeeguy]

most likely.

I think people honestly need to stop copying starbucks and come up with their own ideas.

[Andrew]

Gloria Jeans is a fully owned fully franchised chain under the umbrella of Diedrich's coffee under the stock symbol DDRX.

I don't often imagine starbucks stores in mall food courts but concepts in malls typically do around 30% higher sales than frestanding or stripmall stores...

It will be interesting to see. Unfortunately i live in Seattle where starbucks is king and owns the only other competitor "seattle's best" so technically starbucks is seattles best coffee.

i work at a location in a mall foodcourt, and we're a 50thou+ store, the busiest in the city. granted, it's almost all caramel frapps for bitchy little spoiled teenagers, but whatev.

[justabarista]

Don't worry anon, it tends to be the direction of SBUX that when a store starts hitting mid 30's, they open another store to allievate things. If you're in the food court or some other store front in the mall, you'll probably be getting a kiosk in the middle of the mall at some point.

doubt it. we've been a 50+ store for at least five years, no other store even close to us (well like 3 blocks away...but across a busy highway). there have been rumors for quite some time that there will be another store, but sm&dm deny it and nothing else has led us to believe we'll be getting help.

[baristamom]

I work in a busy mall sbux too! We are the busiest and smallest in town. We need more room!

As a PDX area partner my customers are going to be thrilled to get those coffee people locations.

[-m]

"As a PDX area partner my customers are going to be thrilled to get those coffee people locations."

Did starbucks buy coffee people?

[barista]

my store is located above the foodcourt overlooking it and we make 40+ a week and we're located in vancouver; they opend a kiosk in the grocery store near us like a 2 minute walk and now they are opening another sbux in the same mall at the opposing entrance on the first floor so it should stop the CONSTANT line ups... seiriously there is never a downfall there is always a line 4 deep atleast

[Tom]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/diedrichforum/

Here is more information on Diedrich and the outcome of the purchase if anyone is interested.

[Alohaut]

Really now, I now we want to be better than everyone else. But just because we can buy out other companies doesn't mean we should. Diversity is the spice of life and even though starbucks outwardly supports diversity their actions speak against it, more towards conforming the entire coffee industry to their standards. Even though I get a discount I normally drink at non-starbucks shops just to do something different.

[Zoë]

I'm a bit late commenting, but I currently work at Coffee People, and even though I'm fairly new it's ridiculous to see it go. Despite the fact that Coffee People became slightly less "hippie" in the last few years, 'tis still more than a step above Starbucks.

It's not a conglomerate (I'm tired, and allowed to spell that wrong ^_^), doesn't feel like it, and now half the people who come through our store talk about how much they like us over Starbucks. Diedrich Coffee sold over 40 stores for 13.5 million dollars, and my store makes 1.5 a year in sales. Oh, and sales have been rising constantly and consistently in the last few years.

[elizabeth]

it sad, seeing a great coffee store go down and letting starbucks the store with poor costumer service wins, in diedrich its all about the costumer and the product, in diedrich is about getting the bussiness ,,, since the product is not great they have to promoted too much ( in every corner) and at leat in diedrich you know the product is awesome.

[pete]

true diedrich coffee drinkers will not move on to
starbucks's, matter of fact, there is a dislike of
starbucks. a real screw up for starbucks not to
continue to market under the diedrich name and
to offer them as a qourmet drink.

[B]

Thank God we have Wawa coffee so we to don't have to drink that Pacific northwest crap.

[Robert]

I was sorry to see Diedrich's die. I know I will never patronize that tastelss Starbucks. Something should be done about this monopoly. If I can't find another comporable to Diedrich's I will make my own from their beans I get online. Boycott Starbucks

[Portlandite]

Does anyone know what's going to happen to the wrought iron Coffee People mugs on the signs? I'd hate to see those go to scrap metal. They'd make great planters. If anyone on this board knows who the property managers are, please contact me.