Starbucks shuts for training
More than 8,000 Starbucks stores, including more than 100 in the Bay Area, closed early on Tuesday afternoon for employee antibias training.
The training is a direct result of the April 12 incident where two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks.
Roughly 175,000 Starbucks employees are expected to take part in the training, which was developed with feedback from advocacy groups like the Perception Institute and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
San Francisco is home to 81 Starbucks outposts, making it
the largest food chain in the city. (Subway, the sandwich maker, comes in second place with approximately 44 stores.)
The closures in San Francisco began around 2 p.m. A handful of exceptions, including the Macy’s Union Square location, as well as outposts located within Safeway and Target stores, remained open later.
Claire Spears was trying to visit a Starbucks at Fourth and Mission streets when she saw signs indicating it was closed for a staff meeting. She was aware of the training, she said, but had forgotten it was happening Tuesday.
“It’s not just training, it’s a lifetime thing,” said Spears. “You can have a day of training, but where do you go from here?”
Last month, the owner of a gourmet popcorn shop in Emeryville was accused of (and later apologized for) using a racial slur against black customers.
The Starbucks incident rekindled conversations about a 2015 incident of racial bias reported by W. Kamau Bell, the comedian and writer, at Berkeley’s Elmwood Cafe. The coffee shop suddenly shuttered in late April, and reopened with a new name and new owners several weeks later.