MyStarbucks will not sell Fruit & Cheese.

It's not a good morning when I walk into Starbucks and the line is out the door. The other day this happened and the lady behind me inches towards me and says "You gotta really want it today, huh?". Pfft, lady, I want it everyday. But, let me be honest with myself though, and tell you what I really want. I want to walk into a coffee shop - a local coffee shop - like the first coffee shop I ever frequented in Pacific Beach, California. No corporate mugs or teddy bears. No ham sandwiches, glazed donuts, or skinny-2 pump-vanilla-1 pump-caramel-no whip-lattes. It's such a vague memory now, but I remember coffee, and banana nut bread which came in fresh from a local vendor. It was simple. "Err on the side of simple." This was possibly the downfall of Starbucks: the opening of too many stores, selling too many products, and not concentrating enough on the coffee consumer. But has that changed? With declining sales, and changing CEO hands from Jim Donald to Howard Schultz earlier this year, Starbucks closed its doors for 3 hours on February 25th for a barista training session among 7,1000 stores. What was the purpose? According to The Seattle Times, "The retraining is part of Starbucks' plan to revive its brand and sales growth, which by one measure sank to an all-time low last quarter." Last month Schultz introduced its five-point plan to boost sales and bring back the customer experience. The press release used terms like "revolutionary" and "reinvention", but what received my attention was the term "online community". On April 2nd, Starbucks launched its first online community, MyStarbucksIdea.com. The online community is powered by salesforce.com, an on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution vendor. The CRM application is totally customizable allowing for Starbucks to build on to the software and integrate with the brand that is well, Starbucks. What is the goal behind this social network? Going straight to the site and clicking on About This Site, I see the words: "Your Ideas. Your Starbucks." "What would make your Starbucks experience perfect? We know you've got ideas - big ideas, little ideas, maybe even totally revolutionary ideas - and we want to hear them all. That's why we created My Starbucks Idea. So you can share the ideas that matter to you and you can find out how we're putting those ideas to work. Together, we will shape the future of Starbucks." This is kind of a cool idea. And, although, I do miss my simple PB coffee stop, this is giving a little more credibility to the store selling fruit & cheese samplers. Starbucks (SBUX) closed this week at $16.46. One year ago it closed at $29.61.