A day of reckoning approaches, friends, for on February 26, 2008, between the hours of 5:30PM and 8:30PM local time, the billion dollar global retail coffee monolith known as Starbucks will close all 7,100 US company-operated stores to train--or, as they call it, retrain--their employees in the elusive art of pulling espresso shots. Well, my word, this is news!

Questions most definitely arise in the wake of this announcement. Is this decision to close for a whole three hours an admission of overwhelming guilt? Perhaps an acknowledgment that, through the many years of endless additions of unrelated coffee product, they sadly lost focus on why they're in the business by not training their baristas well in the first place? Maybe, maybe not.

Either way, let's hope that Mike can get some decent espresso drink justice when he bravely returns to the North Oakland Ave. Starbucks after February 26. But truly, friends, only time--and training--will tell.

Link (via Coffee Talk)

Post originally published by Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee.