Roby T. Chapel's history with Starbucks is long and sweet.
He can recall his first gourmet coffee drink, 10 years ago at a Starbucks in Beverly Hills. "It was a Caramel Macchiato, and I took it back to my office and nursed it for, like, three hours," he said.
"I remember saying, 'Oh my God, now I know what people are talking about.' After work that day, I went right back."
On Sunday, I sat with Chapel at the counter of a Starbucks on the edge of Exposition Park. He was sipping a Doppio -- two shots of espresso, nonfat foam, one pump white mocha -- and trying to absorb what I'd just told him: That this store -- his new favorite -- was among 88 California Starbucks to be shuttered this year.
"I remember the first time I saw it," he told me. "I hadn't been back in the neighborhood for years. And I was passing by here, a corner I'd known all my life. And I saw a Starbucks. I was floored. I never would have imagined it."
I can't fault Starbucks for shutting down "underperforming" stores in the face of falling profits and a faltering economy. And it's hard to lament the demise of the $4 latte in communities where most residents struggle to pay rent, buy groceries and gas up aging automobiles.
But Starbucks is about more than a cup of coffee in many neighborhoods. That block-letter logo on a strip mall marquee can be considered a public stamp of approval, a symbol of hope, a suggestion of brewing economic vitality.
That's why a new Starbucks in the inner city tends to produce the kind of excitement that suburban neighborhoods reserve for the debut of a Bloomingdale's.
The two South Los Angeles Starbucks on the closure list are fairly new, comfortable and sleek. Both -- one at the corner of Martin Luther King and Vermont; the other a few miles away on Crenshaw and Vernon -- are products of a collaboration with another marquee name, Magic Johnson, and his economic development company.
When I visited the stores Sunday, neither of the two was bustling. Turns out, both rely on outsiders to fill their coffers -- police officers, university employees, government workers, teachers at nearby schools. These customers count on a Starbucks coffee to be the same in South Los Angeles as it is in Woodland Hills
The Crenshaw store had been holding its own until a Starbucks with a drive-through opened nearby. On Sunday, a barista named Warren cheerfully handed me fliers touting the Crenshaw store's Sunday afternoon poetry readings and comedy showcase on Monday evenings.
