Starbucks has faced strikes before, such as this one in 2024. | Photo: Shutterstock.
It’s been a bit weird on the Starbucks front this week. On Thursday, the company’s union, Starbucks Workers United, organized a strike on the chain’s annual “Red Cup Day.” It organized protests at locations around the country.
And then, late that day, the mayor elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, said on the social media site X that he would not buy coffee from Starbucks while workers were on strike.
Meanwhile, data from traffic tracking firm Placer.ai suggested that the company’s introduction of its fall lineup last week, anchored by the Bearista cup, led to ridiculous traffic at Starbucks locations. The company then said that its Red Cup Day Thursday was on track to hit records.
On Friday, CEO Brian Niccol confirmed all of that, saying that the holiday launch was its busiest day ever, and Thursday’s Red Cup Day was the best Red Cup Day ever. “It shows what’s possible when we keep our focus on the customer and set our green apron partners up to deliver a great experience in every coffeehouse,” Niccol wrote in a system message posted on the Starbucks website.
It may seem a bit odd that Starbucks is generating record sales at a time when protests are taking place outside its locations and popular, newly-elected mayors of big cities are effectively calling for boycotts. That is, until you see just how many stores were apparently on strike: 65.
That’s 0.4% of Starbucks’ total unit count in the U.S. It’s only about 0.65% of its company-owned locations. Like most alleged strikes involving restaurant chain locations, this one has generated far more media attention than actual disruption. But that’s probably the point.
Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract.
While workers are on strike, I won’t be buying any Starbucks, and I’m asking you to join us.
Together, we can send a powerful message: No contract, no coffee. https://t.co/Cw0WMf2hVW
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) November 14, 2025
It’s nevertheless worth exploring just how much this unionization push at the Seattle-based chain has had an impact on the company and its sales—outside, that is, of the union negotiations, the millions upon millions spent in court and generalized headaches.
This strike does not have a set time limit and is over a contract impasse between Starbucks and the union. The union wants better pay and benefits. Starbucks is standing behind its current pay and benefits. The Associated Press has a good summary of the situation here.
The strike comes two years after labor activists organized the first “Red Cup Rebellion” at the chain’s locations, a rebellion that coincided with one of the weakest such days in company history. It also coincided with a social media-driven boycott of Starbucks over Starbucks’ alleged views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, of all things.
The social media boycott, conflating with the union issue, could have initially hurt Starbucks’ reputation among younger consumers that are decidedly pro-union. Gen Z is the most pro-union generation and, according to the Center for American Progress, is more pro-union than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers were at a similar age.
Starbucks in the years until 2023 had done an incredible job of luring younger consumers into its shops, where they would order customized, mostly cold beverages. At least in theory, the boycotts might have hurt the chain’s reputation among that consumer, leading them to shift their business elsewhere. That’s not nothing, especially when there are eager, fast-growing beverage companies ready to take that business.
That initial weakness triggered an enormous number of stories about how bad Starbucks’ business is, which might have intensified the chain’s sales challenges. At least in theory, anyway.
That said, the company told analysts on its most recent earnings call that its value perceptions among Gen Z and Millennial consumers, who make up more than half of the chain’s customer base, have improved of late.
Maybe more importantly: Starbucks’ sales at locations on college and university campuses generated low-double-digit same-store sales growth last quarter. That may be a sign of how tough it had gotten before, but it is nevertheless a stark improvement among a group that would theoretically be influenced by some of the anti-Starbucks noise.
We believe boycotts work for a time but ultimately consumers lose interest, especially when they’re in need of a shot of caffeine in the morning. More to the point, Starbucks’ best defense to any boycott is to improve service inside company shops, introduce new products that generate customer interest and market the hell out of all of that. It’s spent the past several months doing a lot of that, which has led to the sales and traffic improvements. Its results suggest it is succeeding.
Of course, reaching some kind of an agreement could also quiet things down for good, or at least until the next union negotiations, especially now that Mamdani has made his views known. For now, however, Starbucks appears to be emerging from its two-year sales slump, regardless of its cause.
