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6 Big Changes You Might Notice on Your Next Trip to Starbucks
By Adam Hardy MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Nondairy milk is now free.
Starbucks’ new CEO is making big changes in hopes of winning back customers — and maybe getting them to spend some time in the cafe again.
Brian Niccol, who joined Starbucks as chair and CEO in September, has grand plans for the coffee chain. He wants to get back to what he sees as the basics: a good cup of coffee, served quickly in a welcoming environment.
Since taking over the brand, Niccol has announced a long list of priorities, collectively referred to as his “Back to Starbucks” plan, which aims to (re)establish Starbucks as the community coffee shop.
Once referred to as America’s living room, Starbucks has made major changes in recent years, and especially during the pandemic, that prioritized mobile, drive-thru and to-go orders. Cafes removed the condiment bar, shifting creamers and sweeteners behind the counter, and reduced seating, in many cases swapping comfy couches for cushion-less stools and chairs.
The message this sent, to some customers at least, was: Grab your drink and go. In an earnings call on Oct. 30, Niccol acknowledged that this strategy was not working and that the company’s finances were sluggish as a result. For the third consecutive quarter, sales at Starbucks slid. This quarter, sales at locations open for at least one year (aka same-store sales) fell 7%, and traffic to U.S. stores decreased 10%.
“It is clear we need to fundamentally change our strategy to win back customers,” Niccol said.
Here’s what coffee lovers can expect from Starbucks in the coming weeks and months.
1. A simplified menu
One of the key tenets of Niccol’s plan is to simplify Starbucks’ menu. That means refocusing on menu mainstays such as brewed coffees, lattes, iced coffees, flat whites and shaken espressos.
Of course, Starbucks is known for drink customization with flavored syrups, creamers and other add-ons. Many of those will stay, but there will ultimately be fewer base drink options.
“We plan to cut down on our menu to align with our core identity as a coffee company,” a spokesperson tells Money.
The company has already announced that it will be discontinuing its Oleato drinks, which are a combination of olive oil and coffee. In addition, Starbucks tells Money that it plans on removing all iced energy drinks in the coming months. (These are carbonated iced teas with various fruit flavors.)
Starbucks says the focus is first on paring down the drink menu. Food items will likely follow.
2. No upcharges for nondairy milk
As of Thursday, nondairy milks no longer come with an upcharge. Previously, Starbucks charged between 60 and 80 cents for coconut milk, almond milk, oat milk or soy milk (while dairy milk was free).
Starbucks says that, aside from an extra shot of espresso, nondairy milks were the most popular customization. Now about half of customers that pay for a drink modifier could see a price reduction of 10% or more when they choose a nondairy milk, according to Niccol.
The end of the nondairy milk upcharge is part of a broader strategy to make Starbucks feel “worth it,” Niccol said on the earnings call.
The company also says it does not plan to raise prices in 2025.
3. The return of the condiment bar
During the pandemic, Starbucks got rid of the condiment bars that once had creamers, sugars and other drink toppers out for customers to grab as they needed.
Many other coffee and drink shops did the same in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis due to sanitary reasons. But Starbucks never brought it back.
On Reddit, customers and workers often lament the removal of the bar, saying that it’s time-consuming to wait in (or skip) the line to have a barista add a splash of milk. Niccol apparently agrees.
“We plan to bring back condiment coffee bars in all our cafes by early 2025,” he told investors. “It’s a great customer experience and will help with speed of service.”
4. Names on cups again
Another COVID-19-related change the company made was to do away with writing customers’ names on their cups. More than four years later, the practice is still on pause.
It seems like a small change, but it could represent something much larger: One less interaction with your barista could lead to less connection with Starbucks in general (and therefore reduced profits).
Niccol said he wants to bring back names and notes on to-go cups as one way to make ordering a coffee feel more personalized.
“We’re going to get back to doing that. We’re tracking down the Sharpies,” he said during a recent interview with CNBC, adding that the company is planning to order some 200,000 markers.
5. A more welcoming environment
Starbucks wants to become a “third place.”
The idea of the third place is a physical space to simply hang out that isn’t your home or workplace. Before the pandemic, Starbucks was sometimes called “America’s living room,” meaning a place where people could hang out for hours at a time.
In recent years, many Starbucks stores have redesigned their cafes with fewer couches and comfortable chairs. On social media, customers frequently rail against the lack of seating and say it feels like the stores are actively trying to get people to leave.
“I don’t see people hanging out in these places reading, doing homework, writing, etc. very much anymore,” one Redditor wrote last December. “Is this the trend for Starbucks now, locations that are only for mobile and drive-throughs with hanging around discouraged?”
In an effort to make Starbucks feel like a community coffee shop again, Niccols has outlined several changes, including serving drinks in ceramic mugs and installing more comfortable seating. Newspapers — which disappeared from Starbucks locations in 2019 — may also make a return as part of the strategy to get people to spend more time in the cafe.
“We’re reclaiming the third place,” Niccol said, “so our cafes feel like the welcoming coffee house our customers remember.”
6. Separate mobile order pick-up sections
In recent years, Starbucks has been encouraging mobile orders, where customers can choose their drink and pay on the app and then skip the line at the store when picking it up.
But in practice, this can lead to bottlenecks, especially if baristas are already busy taking orders at the counter and drive-thru window. Quickly, the situation can spiral, and a flock of people end up herding around the drink pickup counter.
Soon, Starbucks says it will be re-designing its stores to separate the mobile order pick-up section from the barista counter. Niccol said the company will also be placing guardrails on mobile orders so stores don’t get swamped during rush hours.
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Adam Hardy is Money's lead data journalist. He writes news and feature stories aimed at helping everyday people manage their finances. He joined Money full-time in 2021 but has covered personal finance and economic topics since 2018. Previously, he worked for Forbes Advisor, The Penny Hoarder and Creative Loafing. In addition to those outlets, Adam’s work has been featured in a variety of local, national and international publications, including the Asia Times, Business Insider, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Nasdaq and several others. Adam graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida, where he studied magazine journalism and sociology. As a first-generation college graduate from a low-income, single-parent household, Adam understands firsthand the financial barriers that plague low-income Americans. His reporting aims to illuminate these issues. Since joining Money, Adam has already written over 300 articles, including a cover story on financial surveillance, a profile of Director Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an investigation into flexible spending accounts, which found that workers forfeit billions of dollars annually through the workplace plans. He has also led data analysis on some of Money’s marquee rankings, including Best Places to Live, Best Places to Travel and Best Hospitals. He regularly contributes data reporting for Best Colleges, Best Banks and other lists as well. Adam also holds a multimedia storytelling certificate from Poynter’s News University and a data journalism certificate from the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) at the University of Missouri. In 2017, he received an English teaching certification from the University of Cambridge, which he utilized during his time in Seoul, South Korea. There, he taught students of all ages, from 5 to 65, and worked with North Korean refugees who were resettling in the area. Now, Adam lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida, with his pup Bambi. He is a card-carrying shuffleboard club member.