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Customers Don't Want Starbucks' La Boulange Pastries

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Photo: marcopako / Flickr
Hillary Dixler Canavan is Eater's restaurant editor and the author of the publication's debut book, Eater: 100 Essential Restaurant Recipes From the Authority on Where to Eat and Why It Matters (Abrams, September 2023). Her work focuses on dining trends and the people changing the industry — and scouting the next hot restaurant you need to try on Eater's annual Best New Restaurant list.

Less than two years after buying San Francisco bakery chain La Boulange for $100 million and rolling out an updated pastry menu, Starbucks is restoring certain pre-Boulange baked goods to its menu. According to Bloomberg, Starbucks is responding to customer complaints about the La Boulange offerings. Starbucks COO Troy Alstead says customers "missed" items like "slices of banana, pumpkin and iced-lemon loaf cake" and confirms that Starbucks will be "using new La Boulange recipes and existing suppliers to create food that more closely resembles its previous fare." The La Boulange breakfast items were critically reviled, with the OC Register's Dave Lieberman calling them "the most disgusting breakfast on Earth" and Joshua David Stein describing the croissants as "a buttery dog toy."

· Starbucks Retools Pastry Menu After Customers Complain [Bloomberg]
· All Starbucks Coverage on Eater [-E-]