2 Chicago-area Starbucks already on chain's hit list

By Bonnie Miller Rubin | Chicago Tribune reporter Russell Morgan wants the corporate honchos at Starbucks to know that when it comes to closing store locations, they don't know beans. He may be a retired railroad worker, but get him going on the Seattle coffee giant and he speaks with the authority of a Wall Street analyst. He rattles off a multitude of reasons for the company's financial woes, but nothing, he says, is as boneheaded as the announcement this week that it will shutter the Country Club Hills store at the end of the month. "They just pulled the plug too soon," Morgan said as he satisfied his twice-a-day caffeine habit. "They didn't give it enough time." To people who live in more fashionable ZIP codes, the loss of a Starbucks might not be viewed as a wound to civic pride. But in Country Club Hills, the opening of... [read full story]