(Bloomberg Quint)
Jordyn Holman & Jeff Green January 25 2019 3:36 PM
The young man walking back and forth from his seat to the packaged food section in the Starbucks store looked suspicious, recounted a store manager. In the past, she said she might have asked him to leave.
Instead of confronting him, or calling the police, the manager talked to the man -- who said he was hungry and homeless. She said she then gave him and a friend breakfast.
The anonymous incident was recounted in a much anticipated report released Wednesday as Starbucks Corp. seeks to mend its reputation after a highly publicized confrontation in Philadelphia last April where a store manager called police on two black patrons who later said they were waiting for a business meeting to start before ordering.
In response to the Philadelphia uproar, Starbucks now is training employees to treat anyone who walks in the door as a customer, whether they intend to make a purchase or not. The fresh take on Starbucks’ long-time goal of creating a “third space” -- a public place for interaction and leisure away from home and work -- offers a fresh set of challenges, employees said in the report prepared for Starbucks by a law firm to measure progress on diversity and inclusion.
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