‘Charbuck’ Is New Nickname for Starbucks Location

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Aug 26, 7:16AM EDT · Published Aug 24, 8:20AM EDT

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‘Charbuck’ Is New Nickname for Starbucks Location — © Starbucks (BY-SA 2.0) by marcopako 

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Arsonists attacked a new Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX | SBUX Price Prediction) store in Taos, New Mexico.
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What appears to be arson attacks have burned down a Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) store in Taos, New Mexico. The location, called “Charbucks,” is not entirely built; it would be the first drive-through Starbucks location in the area. Reuters was the first to report on the problem. The arson may be because some residents don’t want Starbucks in their town.

Reuters says, “Meanwhile, the building contractor from Albuquerque, the state’s largest city, has installed video cameras and a security guard sleeps at the site in a camouflage trailer.” The builder does not have many options because the arsonist could return. The new Starbucks CEO may have a problem.

According to the news service, the problem is not new. As Starbucks expanded into countries worldwide, they sometimes hurt traffic to other local coffee shops, or at least that is the impression. Whether it is true is another matter.

This kind of problem is not new. For decades, there was worry that Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) would hurt traffic to local retailers. This has been particularly true with small grocery stores. According to Time Magazine, people who own their smaller stores can’t get the deals that Walmart gets from its suppliers in some parts of the country. This allows Walmart to charge lower prices.

If the history of large businesses in America is any guide, small companies attack bigger ones for monopolizing their sectors. This happens in the software and tech business as the government goes after companies like Alphabet. Does the same yardstick apply to Starbucks? That is anyone’s guess. Burning down stores doesn’t answer the question.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.