Starbucks opens in Ferguson, as company eyes bolstering urban footprint

FERGUSON, Mo. — The baristas at America’s newest Starbucks include 19-year-old Adrienne Lemons, who is the glue of her family now that her dad is in prison.

There’s also 20-year-old Kenia Randolph, who has had as many as 10 family members living in her one-bedroom apartment in recent months. The store’s most recent hire, 20-year-old Deidric Cook, has been shuffling between friends’ couches as he tries to launch himself into adulthood after leaving a house where drug and alcohol abuse became untenable.

On Saturday, the trio will help the Seattle-based coffee juggernaut Starbucks open the company’s new location in Ferguson, a city that became the nation’s poster child of racial inequity after widespread unrest put the St. Louis suburb in the international spotlight following the August 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown.

The opening of the Starbucks in Ferguson, one of 15 that the company pledged last year to open in low-income or predominantly minority neighborhoods, may be the most high-profile step in CEO Howard Schultz’s campaign to address income and racial inequality in America. The Ferguson store launch follows the opening last month of a Starbucks in an ethnically diverse pocket of the Queens borough in New York.

“This isn’t charity,” Rodney Hines, Starbucks director of community investments, told USA TODAY as workers put the final touches on the Ferguson location. “This is about doing good business.”

Schultz in the past has spoken out on hot button issues, such as support for legalizing same-sex marriage and breaking gridlock in Washington politics. But in the aftermath of high-profile encounters between police and African-American men and women, including the incident in Ferguson, Schultz turned his attention to issues of race and economic inequity.

The CEO, who grew up in a New York City housing project and credits much of his success on winning a college football scholarship, took flack for an awkward attempt last year where he encouraged baristas to spur conversations about race with the customers they serve lattes and flat whites.

While the company quickly scrapped that plan, Schultz turned his focus—and that of his family foundation—to the issue of youth unemployment that disproportionately affects minority communities. Some 5.5 million young Americans, 16 to 24, aren’t working or in school.

In addition to launching the plan to open 15 stores in minority communities, Schultz recruited more than 30 other major companies to join Starbucks in pledging to hire a total of 100,000 such disconnected youth by 2018.

At the new Ferguson store, all but a couple of members of the opening day staff come from within a five mile radius of the shop. Starbucks used a local, minority-owned contractor to build the shop, and created a multi-use space within the store that they will lend to non-profits, including the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, to conduct job training programs.

Starbucks also entered into a partnership with an African-American baker from Ferguson, whose business was damaged in a second round of unrest in 2014 after the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Brown, would not be indicted.

Natalie DuBose, the owner of Natalie’s Cakes and More, has grown her staff from six to 22 employees since she started supplying caramel cake for more than 30 Starbucks locations throughout the St. Louis region. Her 700-square foot bakery in downtown Ferguson is buzzing around-the-clock most days as she and her employees try to keep up with their Starbucks orders, while still making cakes for their regular customers.

“It shows that people still care,” DuBose said of Starbucks launch in Ferguson. “After all the media has gone back to their homes, there is still somebody that cares and that is still watching."

Starbucks recruited Cordell Lewis, a local man with deep ties to the area, to serve as the store manager.

Lewis, 37, said growing up in a household where there was drug abuse lead to a shaky environment during his teen years. But when he was 15, a high school coach took a deep interest in him and helped get him on the right path.

He eventually went to Missouri State University, where he walked on to the football team and later won a football scholarship. If not for that coach, Lewis said his life could have gone on a very different path. Lewis said his hope is that he can make that same kind of impact on some of the young people he will manage.

“My number one goal was to have a diverse team,“ Lewis said. “We have all walks in this building--African-American, Asian, white,  male, female,  gay, straight. Religious affiliations that go all over the place. That is Ferguson, that is these small communities, and I want us to really represent that.”

Randolph, who lives in neighboring Florissant and was recruited to be part of the Ferguson project, said that before she landed a job with Starbucks she found many potential employers reluctant to give her a chance.

When Randolph applied for her first entry-level job, she said some potential employers asked questions about her Afro. She now wears her hair in braids.

“They said it was unprofessional,” said Randolph, recalling the response she received from some prospective employers.

For all the skepticism she’s faced, Randolph said she thinks young black men have it tougher. The data reinforces her observations.

In the St. Louis region, there are about 48,000 unemployed people between the ages of 16 and 24. About half of those unemployed or out-of-school young people are black men.

“I think there is also some concern and skepticism of you (from prospective employers), if you come from some of the neighborhoods around here,” said Deidric Cook, who lived out of his car at one point this winter.

The 19-year-old Lemons said that the job has been nothing less than an oasis for her during a turbulent time in her life. Her pay, she said, is more important than ever now that her father is incarcerated. But the work is also providing her with something else.

“It’s like a getaway for me,” said Lemons, who lives in Ferguson and is helping financially support some of her younger siblings. “Although, I still have to go home and deal with whatever else is going on. I don’t feel like there is anything negative going on when I’m at work.”

Ferguson is still trying to make its way back from the upheaval that engulfed this St. Louis suburb and ignited a broad conversation about race relations in America.

The city earlier this month entered into a federal consent decree to overhaul the community’s police department and municipal court, which the Justice Department denounced as bedeviled by racial bias. Ferguson also may soon face layoffs as they try to figure out how to pay down about $3 million in debt, much of which was accrued from overtime paid to police officers that flooded the area in the aftermath of months of unrest.

Michael McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, said Starbucks and a handful of other big corporations—including Anheuser-Busch InBev, Emerson Electric and Walgreens—deserve credit for investing in Ferguson and other predominantly African-American communities in the St. Louis region.

“But, as a whole, if you look across urban America, there has been disinvestment in urban communities and communities of color from of our major corporations and retailers,” McMillan said. “I applaud Starbucks for being willing to do something…But we need more.”

Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad