Starbucks Will Be Simplifying Its ‘Overly Complex’ Menu, According to Its New CEO Brian Niccol

Your Starbucks order could be changing very soon.

In October, Starbucks reported its preliminary fourth-quarter net revenue at $9.1 billion, marking a 3% year-over-year drop. It's also the third quarter in a row that the coffee giant has experienced a decrease in revenue. And that's something Brian Niccol, the company's new CEO, wants to address by streamlining operations — including the chain's complex menu. 

“People love Starbucks, but I’ve heard from some customers that we've drifted from our core, that we’ve made it harder to be a customer than it should be, and that we’ve stopped communicating with them,” Niccol shared in a prerecorded video uploaded to the Starbucks website. “To welcome all our customers back and return to growth, we need to fundamentally change our recent strategy.” He added that the “Back to Starbucks” plan will be that “fundamental change.” 

According to Niccol, who came over from Chipotle, the company will work to get back to its “core identity” to ensure customers keep coming back. “To succeed, we need to address staffing in our stores, remove bottlenecks, and simplify things for our baristas,” he said. “We will simplify our overly complex menu, fix our pricing architecture, and ensure that every customer feels Starbucks is worth it every single time they visit.”       

Food & Wine reached out to Starbucks for clarification on what that simplification means and were told by a spokesperson that “we don’t have more to share beyond what was released on October 22 as our preliminary Q4 and full fiscal year 2024 results, given that we’re still in quiet period. We will provide insights into the Back to Starbucks plan during the Q4 and Full Fiscal Year 2024 Earnings Call on October 30.”

And really, while some may be disappointed if a few of their favorite concoctions fall off the menu, it may be the best path forward. 

As Starbucks shared, its U.S. same-store sales fell by 6% year-over-year, while overall in-store transactions fell by 10%. It added, “The accelerated investments in an expanded range of product offerings coupled with more frequent in-app promotions and integrated marketing to entice frequency across the customer base did not improve customer behaviors, specifically traffic across both Starbucks Rewards and non-SR customer segments, resulting in lower-than-expected performance.” So yes, you can likely kiss that olive oil latte goodbye. 

“While our efficiency efforts continued to produce according to plan, they were not enough to outpace the impact of the decline in traffic,” Rachel Ruggeri, the chief financial officer of Starbucks, added. “We are developing a plan to turn around our business, but it will take time. We want to amplify our confidence in the business and provide some certainty as we drive our turnaround.” 

As for Niccol, he added that he's convinced by the “Back to Starbucks” plan. “With a focus on coffee and customers combined with a welcoming coffee house experience created by our green apron partners,” he said, “we will remind people of why they love Starbucks.”