Coronavirus closed this Starbucks, but Seattle needs its coffee

[SEATTLE] Machele Miely, on her way to meet a friend for coffee in downtown Seattle on Saturday, stopped to snap a photo on her phone of a sign posted on the door of a Starbucks saying that the store was temporarily closed and that it was sorry for the inconvenience.

The sign said nothing about why it was closed, but Ms Miely knew the reason: coronavirus.

"People are trying not to panic, while preparing to panic," said Ms Miely, 41, who works as a project manager for a construction company and had a small bottle of hand sanitizer clipped to her belt - a must-have accessory in recent days.

The coronavirus has hit the Seattle area harder than anywhere else in the United States, with 16 deaths in Washington state, most from an outbreak at a nursing home northeast of the city. The virus and its public health implications and consequences have rippled out, affecting how and where people work and where and when they gather in groups.

And Friday, a Starbucks employee at a downtown location was confirmed to have the virus, closing that store and forcing residents to confront the reality that even a small daily ritual like a morning cup of coffee would be affected by the virus.

Starbucks started in Seattle, and with its expansion and close association with the city starting in the early 1970s, the company has imprinted Seattle as America's coffee city, an often gloomy town where a strong grande on a late winter morning can cut the chill.

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"Seattle is freaking out," said Lenny Galaviz, who stopped to take a photograph through a window of the closed store, a Starbucks Reserve, where alcohol is also served and special glass beakers are lined up for cold brews and other specialty drinks.

Mr Galaviz, 58, works in the warehouse at CenturyLink Field, a Seattle sports stadium, selling beer and soft drinks to the crowd. He moved to Seattle only about a year ago from Maine, and now many of his friends back home have been calling in concern. "They're all saying, 'Be careful, be careful,'" he said, peering in through the glass.

Starbucks, in a posting on the its website, has said the company is following health authority guidelines in trying to protect customers and employees, and has taken additional steps to reduce the risk of exposure at its stores - barring customers from using their own coffee containers, for example.

"Our focus remains on two key priorities: caring for the health and well-being of our partners and customers, and playing a constructive role in supporting local health," Rossann Williams, president of company-operated business in the United States and Canada, said in the statement.

One would-be customer at the closed store, Terry Murphy, said he thought the response to the outbreak has gone beyond the reality of the risk.

"I honestly think this is being exaggerated," said Mr Murphy, 65, who was dropping off his daughter for her job at the Seattle Art Museum, just opposite the Starbucks, before starting his own job as a driver for Lyft, a ride share company. "I went to another Starbucks yesterday and I have a cup that I bring in, and they made the thing, and then made me take their cup and pour it into mine," he said. "I said, 'What?' But apparently that's the policy now."

Cindy Fisher, 57, a nurse who works in electronic medical records at the University of Washington, said her office was now empty, like much of the rest of the university, with people there working or taking classes remotely.

Ms Fisher, who stopped by what Starbucks calls its original location, at Pike Place Market, said she was not terribly worried about the virus - frequent hand-washing and keeping your hands from your face goes a long way, she said - but she feared the economic effect of people staying home and avoiding crowds.

"I'm in Pike Market today to support the local vendors," she said.

RoShaine Perry, a car salesman from Sacramento, California, who was visiting Seattle with his wife, Yna - and posing for photos in front of the glass windows of the 1970s vintage Pike Market Starbucks - said his religious faith was a strength at times like this.

"There's risk in everything you do in life," said Mr Perry, who is 34. "But there's a bigger eternity, we feel like, out there," he added. "So we just believe, have faith and keep moving."

Ms Miely, the construction project manager, said she found it reassuring, if not quite comforting, that the Starbucks with the sick employee had closed down temporarily.

"I'd rather see Seattle act out of an abundance of caution and close things early and often to keep people safe," she said.

In any event, the closing was no big loss to her, coffee-wise; she was heading to meet a friend at a competing coffee place two doors away, and said she would have passed the Starbucks even if it had been open. "Their coffee always tastes burned," she said.

NYTIMES