Starbucks, Bennigans...no mas?

Bennigan's Restaurants Shut Down Nationwide
Customers showing up for lunch at Bennigan's restaurants across the country yesterday found quite a surprise...all the corporate-owned locations had signs on display reading "closed for business."

Bennigan's Grill and Tavern closed all of its corporate-owned locations nationwide after filing for bankruptcy. That amounts to 160 locations, and about 10,000 employees are out of work. Independent franchises remain open for business as usual.

Some managers and some employees say they were called in the middle of the night. People got the calls at the stores, others were called at 1:00 in the morning at their homes. No one expected it.
The corporate-owned locations comprise about half the entire chain.

Starbucks to shut majority of its Australian stores
Starbucks said Tuesday it would shut most of its Australian stores within a week, having already taken the axe to hundreds of US outlets as an economic downturn bites.

The company said it would shut 61 "underperforming" stores from a total 84 in Australia because it was refocusing to concentrate on the major cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and surrounding areas.

Schultz said in a statement the decision to shut the stores reflected problems specific to the country and did not reflect "the strong state of Starbucks business in countries outside of the United States."

"There are no other international markets that need to be addressed in this manner," he said.