This Starbucks location has finally run out of steam.
After nearly 30 years facing The Cube, the notorious Starbucks outpost at 13-25 Astor Place — known for its decrepit public bathrooms, napping homeless folks and indoor panhandling — shuttered quietly Sunday evening.
“On multiple occasions I’ve seen staff have to unlock the door and drag someone out,” one Yelp reviewer claimed. “On one occasion, one of them banged on the door and told the person inside to ‘go shoot up your heroin outside.'”
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Still, regulars are in mourning over the barren East Village brew site — which once served as Manhattan’s largest Starbucks.
“I’m actually a little sad because I’ve had coffee so many times here, had so many great conversations here, even went on a few bad Tinder dates here,” Katia Jimenez, 24, told The Post outside the location Sunday.
“I’m sure I’ve bought coffee here 50 times over the years,” Diana Heckman, 41, told The Post. While she lives closer to the Washington Square Park location, she would make the longer journey in favor of Astor Place.
“I’ve spent many a winter Sunday here on my laptop because, as Starbucks, goes it’s a particularly spacious and cozy location. So yeah, I’ll shed a tear for Starbucks,” Heckman said.
One barista told customer Erik Aksakova, 29, that the location was closing because the rent was too high.
“Are you serious? How high can rent possibly get that it’s not even sustainable for a Starbucks to stay open here?” Aksakova told The Post, adding the coffee giant’s policy against turning away non-customers has allowed homeless people to “hang out all day” in the space and drive away customers.
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Management told the hyperlocal blog EVGrieve that the the rent had become “so astronomically high that even corporate Starbucks couldn’t pay it.”
A representative for ASG Equities, which owns the space, said rising rent costs as reason for Starbucks’ departure is “simply not the case.”
“We are sad they chose to leave, even as we offered a lease extension that would have allowed them to remain in their existing space at the exact same rent,” the spokesperson said, noting the highly trafficked spot will be “of interest to a wide range of community-oriented retailers.”
Aksakova also said the 2022 unionization of the store’s workers “didn’t improve the store’s chances of staying open” — although the company claimed the union had nothing to do with the closure.
“That is not true,” a Starbucks spokesperson told The Post.
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“We apply the same focus to evaluate, modify and close both union-represented and non-union stores based on our ability to provide the Starbucks Experience to our customers and to support both our partners and the business,” the spokesperson added.
Starbucks made headlines in 2022 and 2023 after shuttering several unionized stores, including all three unionized Ithaca, New York sites — one store was closed just weeks after a vote, The New Republic reported.
“The College Ave location may be the single most prime property in all of Upstate NY,” ex-Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick wrote on Twitter at the time. “Over 15,000 pedestrians cross it every day. There’s no way it isn’t profitable. This looks like union busting.”
Last year, the National Labor Relations Board alleged Starbucks closed 23 stores to deter unionizing, Reuters reported. An NLRB administrative judge ruled in May that Starbucks violated labor laws at a unionized New Orleans store — as the chain faces dozens of other complaints including closing unionized stores and firing union supporters.
Nevertheless, Starbucks and the national organizing group Workers United have made “real progress” and will continue framework bargaining sessions, the chain said in a June statement.
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In the meantime, another unionized store in Williamsburg closed on June 30, Greenpointers reported.
Starbucks is working with Workers United to transfer the 17 employees affected by the Astor Place location closure, the Starbucks spokesperson told The Post.
“While the terms and locations of partner transfers, or severance for those who do not opt to transfer, will be subject to a negotiated agreement with Workers United, Starbucks is committed to ensuring all partners in these locations are supported through this transition,” the spokesperson added.
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The massive Astor Place shop was known as often chaotic.
Dave, a 28-year-old homeless man from Boston had previously told The Post cops only showed up if someone was dangerous at the java spot.
“Employees might come over and very quietly ask sleeping people to wake up and move on, but then those same guys go right back to sleep,” he said.
Still, longtime customers expressed concern to The Post over another empty storefront in Manhattan, which has seen the number of vacant commercial spaces double since the pandemic.
“I’d hate to see the [Astor Place] space get rented by a bank or some other soulless thing, because so much of the appeal of this neighborhood is its character – not that Starbucks had a ton of character, but I think it found its identity here,” Jimenez added.
“I really hope they open another coffee shop or café here, something built with a lot of character and love that makes the neighborhood better.”
Alessandra Habus, 28, simply cited changing palettes and coffee trends, adding that she would like to see an independent roaster take over the coveted spot.
“Starbucks used to be everyone’s favorite coffee, and maybe still is for a lot of people, but in New York it’s all about the cozy little independent shops,” she told The Post.
“In the nineties, Starbucks was the death of the independent stores, but now I think the reverse is true. There’s such an appetite for authenticity right now.”
