To me to build new stores with no interior seating, due to a temporary pandemic is silly. Surely Starbucks expects to get a few decades out of these new locations. I guess Starbucks does tend to be on the bandwagon of whatever new thing is popular, but to think people will never, ever go out again is rather strange.pseudo3d wrote: ↑August 2nd, 2020, 2:10 pm They're still opening sit-down cafes, there's one being built not far away from me.
Eventually, COVIDmania will go away and things will go back to normal (despite "the new normal" being hyped up, do you really expect that society will permanently keep up with handwashing?), I keep finding articles where analysts conflate government restrictions with consumer behavior, and only a fool would think "Well, the theaters are all closed, guess people don't like going to movies anymore".
The problem is COVID is still as dangerous an issue as ever, and there is no alternative plan to get back to normal until there is a vaccine, which could take 18-24 months at best. 3-5 years at worst. That's a long time. And it leaves Starbucks and other establishments on a kind of strange predicament between choosing what's necessary and best now, but leaving room for the (quite distant) future when (hopefully) things are better and more normal with people going out more.