According to a listing on Starbucks' website, both of their coffeehouses in Glendale (Atlas Park and Union Turnpike) are closing, as is their store at Douglaston Plaza. But hey, there's always Esparks to fill the void!
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33 comments:
Didn't Starbucks just announce the
closing of 600 stores nationwide?
This is a barometric indicator of shrinking expendable dollars and the impending recession/depression soon to follow.
Guess all those yuppies will have to settle for an ordinary working class cup of "Joe" at the local diner!
Tsk, tsk, tsk...I feel their pain!
Starbucks closing?
Good! Hate their coffee anyway.
"Guess all those yuppies will have to settle for an ordinary working class cup of "Joe" at the local diner!"
Ha! So true. God, I hate those yuppies.
I guess that the much promoted as "classy" Atlas Park will soon become
discount city, once it loses its
(h-m-m-m) "upscale"latte lapping Starbucks shopping crowd (heh, heh)!
Bring on those Bodegas and 99 cent shops like you see along Steinway Street!
You mother fuckers are just salivating waiting for Atlas to crap out. And you know what? When you get the 99 cent stores and bodegas in you will get the clientele that goes with it. What would you rather have in your neighborhood? People with money or POOR people who turn the neighborhood into crap. Your choice!!!
Just in time to fill the gaping void, a new Fauxbucks... er ah, Esparks location is on its way to the corner of Greenpoint Avenue and 45th Street in alluring Sunnyside.
A "brilliant"
real retail incentive...Dale...
locating Atlas park adjacent to a cemetery!
So your new ad campaign focuses on
"Tempis fugit...shop 'til you drop...eh" ?
AP is already dead and soon to be joining its nearby neighbors (financially speaking).
That "mother fuckers" poster sounds like a R-A-C-I-S-T to me...what ho?
There are 2 Starbucks at 89-89 Union (across from the Forest Park Crescent Apartments): one inside the Stop and Shop, and the stand-alone in the plaza.
Not that I ever buy the stuff, but wonder if both are closing...
I won't use the vulgarity but I have to agree with the comment about people happy to see Atlas Park fail.
What is wrong with you people? It's not like they tore down a park or old homes. They built on a largely empty warehouse site. Do you prefer empty warehouses to Atlas Park?
And who's the racist? Those who want to see it succeed and be upscale or those who are opposed to it from the get go because they want to keep non-neighborhood people away?
Would you rather to continue living surrounded by signs of decrepitude and travel out to the big lifeless malls in Long Island?
Sure Atlas could use some improvements (more windows on the outside, broader array of stores, etc.) but I for one enjoy strolling there, bumping into people from the area, and enjoying the pleasant atmosphere.
The people hoping Atlas fails are just losers. The fact is that Atlas Park is doing extremely well and they are planning to expand to add more stores.
Atlas Park is working with a failing business plan. They signed yuppie draws like Starbucks to a non-yuppie neighborhood. Their ad campaign "just outside Forest Hills" is an abysmal insult to Glendale. By signing expensive restaurants and shops, they failed to recognize who their customer is and what they are looking to buy. They thought they could survive off Forest Hills alone, but they miscalculated the popularity of the place in that area. And now they are desperately trying to recoup by having multiple bus lines rerouted to the stores. The place was under construction for 2 years before it opened. You'd think the bus rerouting, if necessary for the place's survival, would have been asked for back in late 2005, not after the place has been open for more than 2 years. They also have been unresponsive to community concerns about noise and traffic, so many have taken their shopping dollars elsewhere. They are their own worst enemy.
"The fact is that Atlas Park is doing extremely well and they are planning to expand to add more stores."
Businesses thriving at Atlas Park:
- movie theater - thousands of kids at the mall on weekend nights
- Chili's and CPK (after movies get out)
- Bobbi and the Strays (a non-profit in donated space)
Boutiques with overpriced crap - empty
"When you get the 99 cent stores and bodegas in you will get the clientele that goes with it."
Glendale, Maspeth and Middle Village already have several of these, and they were there before Atlas Park. No major change in neighborhood, except by developers...
I don't know if "mother fuckers" was racist but he was certainly classist which is just about as bad.
As for Atlas Park: the problem with it is that it's completely fake and anti-urban. Yes, I like having a somewhat decent, if mainstream, bookstore nearby and a movie theatre. But having them in that alabaster fortress makes them much less appealing. I'd rather see them (and the other shops) in, say, the BUSINESS DISTRICTS of our neighborhoods. To me it's a crying shame that there's a mall movie theatre when the future of the historic Ridgewood is completely uncertain.
As for Starbucks: I don't drink much coffee (never really developed the taste for it) and when I do I like me some Dunkin Donuts. I don't go in there very often, so I can't really talk about their product. But my understanding is that they just opened way too many stores to maintain quality or profitability. They became a joke which you can’t afford to be if you’re seriously trying to sell $4.00 coffee.
Just suprised that these Starbucks are closing-- both always seemed to have a steady stream of customers-- not like the lines in the building where I work in the city, but still... sorry for my husband, who loves the coffee, but not for me-- I'm too cheap to pay $4 for a latte, when I can make the same at home.
In my view, Atlas' biggest mistake was charging $3 for parking (and now continuing to do so, except for the small "tax rebate" break a few months ago). However, my understanding is that the parking lots are leased by Hemmerdinger to another company. It goes against my German frugality to pay for parking in Glendale-- Queens Blvd. maybe, where there is a premium on space. I don't care how far I have to walk, I always park outside of Atlas.
That being said, and as I always say, I wish Hemmerdinger well. I think it took guts to do what he did and I wish the retailers wouldn't appear to have so much trepidation to open up. It would be a great place to shop, if there were more! (and just avoid the place/teens on weekend nights!)
"As for Atlas Park: the problem with it is that it's completely fake and anti-urban. ... having them in that alabaster fortress makes them much less appealing."
Alabaster fortress? Compared to what? A totally indoor covered mall like you see in every 'burb in the land? And how is it anti-urban, since it is in a part of the city that does have more space and single family homes and grass. I would say it fits in quite well.
I still think the location is odd, but it is obviously not failing. That is wishful thinking on the part of some sore-heads.
Regarding Atlas: In some way I DO hope it fails, because then the Hemmerdingers will be less likely to build the huge luxury condo building that the "high end lifestyle mall" and all the MTA rerouting is about (first the Q54, then the Q45, they've asked for the Q23, and there are "rumors" about an LIRR station coming to Glendale).
When the Hemmerdingers begin to care about and support the community that already exists in the area, then the community will care about and support their enterprises.
Is this the beginning of what we will later call the Atlas Exodus--first, Bombay which went out of biz nationwide; Now Starbucks. Seriously, What is next we ask? I was in Borders--a welcome addition to Glendale--and the clerk told me that they are doing fine, but that other stores in the mall are not. Wait and see: If another store departs, then you will know. Is there an "Atlas Solution" for this? It's a real Hummdinger of a problem!!!
Glendale, Maspeth and Middle Village are the asshole and skidmarks of Queens.
Atlas Park is the only thing good about the area.
A large cup of starbucks coffee is about $2 dollars, which is about the same as Dunking Donuts. That being said, the people who go to starbucks are the people from your own neighborhood. The customers are old and young and of all colors, shapes and education. I think It's great to have a place that you can go to and sit down in a pleasant atmosphere and have a cup of coffee. I love to go for 4-5 mile walks all over Queens with my wife and be able to have a place to take a break,listen to pleasant music and relax. There is so much fast food crap out there in queens that a Starbucks sandwich is a good alternative. With the amount of money people spend on crap food and stuff they don't need, a good clean coffee shop is way done on the list as far as I'm concerned. Corporate and too big? probably, but so is everything out there these days. Spending $4 bucks on a coffee drink is not for me, but I do like the coffee shop experience as a place for people to gather just like the coffee shop in the bookstore. I like Atlas as far as a "MALL" but to charge me to park is a joke.
"There is so much fast food crap out there in queens that a Starbucks sandwich is a good alternative."
Atlas Park Starbucks food
How is that? I don't see sandwiches listed, and the breakfast sandwiches are full of fat and calories, too.
TRILBY: Alabaster fortress? Compared to what? A totally indoor covered mall like you see in every 'burb in the land?
No, I don’t mean that the people who go there are alabaster. (DO people go there? It’s always seemed strangely unoccupied every time I’ve been there.) I mean that the building itself is aggressively WHITE. Sepulchral, almost. And from the street has all the charm of a Newark parking garage. Inside, yes, it’s clean and well maintained but it’s fundamentally FAKE. It’s private retail space pretending to be a public town square but missing, of course, the crucial element of true community. I find it dishonest.
It’s anti-urban inasmuch as it’s a bit of pernicious suburbia plopped down in the city. But maybe that’s my anti-‘burb bias. Its worst sin is probably that it’s not near anything and so to get to it you’re almost required to drive (or take a bus). And the last thing we need to be doing is encouraging more driving in the city. As I think I mentioned before, it would have been better to have built the individual shops along some main street – say Myrtle Ave – near to where people actually live, and near established transportation. But that wouldn’t have been nearly as profitable. So we have a white pimple next to a graveyard. Brilliant.
In my view, Atlas' biggest mistake was charging $3 for parking (and now continuing to do so, except for the small "tax rebate" break a few months ago). However, my understanding is that the parking lots are leased by Hemmerdinger to another company. It goes against my German frugality to pay for parking in Glendale...
If that were true your "German Frugality" would lead you to shopping at the dollar stores on Metropolitan, Myrtle, or Central Avenues where you can get many of the same products for a cheaper price, you would wait until movies come out on DVD, and you would wait until the paperback comes out in your local CVS.
You're not frugal. You're an idiot and a disgrace to the Germans.
Yes, you're an idiot for supporting the stores inside the mall with the money you would have spent on parking. Shame on you!
I'm really troubled by the negative post on this blog. It's apparent that Queens should be abandoned and left as the Shit hole it is perceived to be.
I'm really troubled by the negative post on this blog. It's apparent that Queens should be abandoned and left as the Shit hole it is perceived to be.
So you went to a blog called Queens Crap and expected it to be all happiness and niceness? Of course with controversial issues there will be some negativity and arguing!
And for someone so supposedly concerned about negativity, you don't seem concerned about adding more yourself!
So, yes, please do leave us alone! We don't need more brainless anonymous commenters.
Ridgewoodian said: Its worst sin is probably that it’s not near anything
I commented about this earlier, but the problem I have with Atlas--and definitely its worst sin--is that the intention of the Hemmerdingers from the very beginning was that it WOULD be near something: the 20- or 30-story luxury condo building they intend to build right next door to it, on the flat expanse that's an unused "parking lot" they sometimes host carnivals in. You don't think they tore down that building to have an unused space, do you?
With that building in place, they wouldn't particularly need anyone else to support the mall's stores, it would be a built-in clientele!
And the re-routing of buses is just to support the condo, too.
Imagine how inticing it would be: next door to shopping, several bus routes and an LIRR station nearby, "green" space across the street (yeah, it's a cemetary and not a park, but that pretty much means the view won't get blocked out by another building going up there).
I own and live in a house close enough that this building would probably cast a shadow. So please try to understand why I (and many of my neighbors) am no fan of Atlas and the Hemmerdingers!
Who drinks that overpriced crap anyway? Long live Dunkin Donuts!!!
"You're not frugal. You're an idiot and a disgrace to the Germans."
Why? Because I have a problem paying $3 to park, when I can park outside and walk there in two minutes? Oh, and guess what-- I don't buy my books at CVS-- I use my library card and so do my kids who love the library as much as I did when I was a kid (you can reserve any book online and you get an e-mail telling when the books are ready to be picked up)-- and for those books that I plan to keep, I buy them at Borders (using the $3 I've saved to go towards their purchase price), after my family's had dinner at CPK. Or we've gone into Spokesman to buy something for our bikes (by the way, it's a great store, with an incredibly helpful staff). Oh yeah, I'm a disgrace to Germans-- I'm a professional who lives in the Gardens(with a cappucino maker in my kitchen, so I don't have to pay the $4 for a latte at Starbucks).
I like Starbucks--grew up with strong coffee! (Usually just drink coffee, not a $4 latte.) I really like the free-standing Union Turnpike store. I hope it's not this one! It's spotlessly clean, they have a great team (it's evolved some since they open, but new members seem to fit in really nicely), and they remember their regulars. For a corporate shop, it's a neighborhood hangout.
ANONYMOUS: So please try to understand why I (and many of my neighbors) am no fan of Atlas and the Hemmerdingers!
Neither one of us are fans of Atlas. Perhaps for different reasons – but that’s like Red Sox fans and Mets fans both having their own reasons for hating the Yankees. I hadn’t heard of the condo but from the sound of it, it wouldn’t be a very good idea – plopped down next to a cemetery, not particularly near anything of interest except the mall, which isn’t interesting. Reminds me a little of a novel I read a long time ago, High Rise by J.G. Ballard.
Condos seem like a strange idea and I don't think he would get the residents that he is looking for, but if they were to provide a shuttle service to the subway on 71/Continental, it might work (maybe).
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