Starbucks has a new name: “Charbucks.”
Locals in Taos, New Mexico, gave the nickname to the construction site of a Starbucks that has been the site of two arson attacks.
The developer is again working to build the chain’s first drive-through cafe in the town of roughly 6,400, aiming for a spring 2025 opening date in the town about 90 minutes north of Santa Fe.
A Starbucks construction site in Taos, New Mexico, was burned down twice. REUTERSThe site was set ablaze in August 2023 and then again two months later.
No one was injured.
A couple of chains planning to open in Taos projects reneged after the second fire.
Taos’ town council green-lit the store because it would provide employment and tax revenue, the town’s economic development director said.
Taos has licensed Starbucks outposts in two supermarkets.
Development is underway — again — after the Starbucks site was set ablaze twice. REUTERS“We don’t know who did it, but we loved it,” Todd Lazar, a holistic healer, said at World Cup, Tao’s oldest independent coffee shop that is a mile from the would-be Starbucks.
Starbucks, which has roughly 39,500 cafes worldwide, has faced opposition when it arrived in a number of markets due to fears it would displace existing culture.
Local businesses in Taos have displayed a Starbucks logo with a mermaid that has flames shooting out of the top of it.
“Taos is a dynamic and volatile contact zone between different groups, imperial powers, ecotones,” Sylvia Rodriguez, professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, said.
with Post wires
