No Starbucks - the world goes to bed early and gets up late

Sometimes you just need to stop and smell the coffee - especially if the coffee is starting to taste a little off - especially if your the king of coffee conglomerates - and ESPECIALLY if your name is Starbucks.

As a matter of fact, Starbucks listens well, deciding to close 7,100 of its stores for three hours on Tuesday night. But why? One can only imagine the cries of terror from millions of caffeine addicts trolling Wall Street. The answer comes in the form the corporate version of coffee re-education camp for Starbucks employees everywhere the nation.

The brief store closings is a response to Starbucks' declining sales and slower rate of expansion. As the Times delicately proclaims, "it (Starbucks) is increasingly seen as just another big food chain." Sounds like a little bit of espresso nostalgia. I seem to remember hearing that all coffee served to Americans is stale. Yup. High quantities of coffee beans imported from foreign farms... far, far, away. Take that, coffee snobs. Don't believe me?

So here's the bottom line: After months of a sharp decline in investor confidence and closing more than 100 of its stores, the approved Starbucks solution is to close for three hours, re-train, re-open and.. VOILA ... the PR manager at headquarters should be patting himself on the back!

Not so fast.

Coffee miracles don't happen overnight, especially when it comes to revamping a company's image on the national level. This is a clever move that will dupe most American coffee loyalists into thinking that it will back to the good 'ol days from now on. Just to prove they're serious about going back to the basics of being the coffee empire, however, Starbucks plans to remove all sandwiches and snacks that omit any lingering smell (GASP!). They just want customers to smell the coffee.
I can already see the first few customers coming back in and swearing that the coffee is "soooooooo much better now." You've fooled us all, oh majesty of the latte.

Almost.