Starbucks feels heat of bean counting

ATLANTA — It seems the "latte factor" has caught up with Starbucks.

For years, financial advisers and magazine "how-to save" lists have consistently used $4 lattes as Exhibit A when it comes to wasteful American spending.

Starbucks, that symbol of extravagant discretionary spending, this week announced it was closing 600 stores. Over-saturating the market was certainly a big factor. But so was a penny-pinching public.

Best-selling author and frequent "Oprah" guest David Bach claims to have invented the term "latte factor" when a woman he was counseling complained she was broke while sipping a pricey coffee product.

Bach's oft-heard thesis is a person who skips his daily coffee purchase and then saves and invests that money will eventually reap a fortune.

"It became a metaphor around the world about how we spend small amounts of money each day that actually become huge amounts," he said in an interview Wednesday. "Americans are waking up. In a difficult economy, the five-buck cup must go."

Two Atlantans buying into that principle are Cash Morris and his wife, Jacki Macker, who sat outside a downtown Atlanta Starbucks sharing an iced vanilla latte.

"This is a treat," said Morris, a 28-year-old lawyer, who pointed out they only had one drink on the table. "With tip, this costs $5. You can eat lunch with that."

Macker, a 30-year-old business student, said they both were coffeehouse regulars until a tough economy and a need to save for a home down payment turned a daily purchase into an extravagance.

"Something had to be cut," she said.

Asked what he thinks when he hears the $4 latte under constant attack, Doug Bond, owner of San Francisco Coffee Roasting Co. in Atlanta, laughed and then said with a little anger: "Why is coffee always picked on?"

Bond, who recently opened a third shop, said his core business is good, especially for those who drink a cup of Joe each day.

"The latte people are maybe cutting back from five days a week to two or three," he said.

And as customers questioned the rationale of plunking down $4 for a Starbucks product, lower-cost competitors have aggressively told caffeine fiends they can still get their fix for less.

"Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's are much better value for basically the same drink," said James Laskaris, a co-owner of 13 Dunkin' Donut franchises, mostly north of Atlanta. "With the economy and gas prices, people are coming to us."

Bill Torpy writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.