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Business News > Mint Authors > Heather Haddon

Heather Haddon

ARTICLES BY HEATHER HADDON

Baristas’ role in providing customer service was a focus of Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s first year at the coffee chain.

What Starbucks’s new CEO has changed, and what he says is next on his list

4 min read . 27 Jan 2026

Steakhouse operators say their customers tend to be more affluent and can pay up, but the operators still have plenty of complaints about rising prices.

Why a $500 steak dinner only yields a $25 profit

4 min read . 29 Dec 2025

Taco Bell Chief Food Innovation Officer Liz Matthews. (Photographs by Jennelle Fong for WSJ)

How Taco Bell knows exactly what you want to eat at 2 am

7 min read . 22 Nov 2025

A KFC restaurant in Floral Park, New York, US. Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

How KFC lost fast food’s chicken crown—and how it plans to win it back

4 min read . 28 Oct 2025

Starbucks led to a rollercoaster of a week in late September, during which the company abruptly closed hundreds of stores and laid off thousands of employees. (REUTERS)

Starbucks’s roller coaster week of job cuts and store closures

4 min read . 05 Oct 2025

The McDonald’s critique adds a big industry voice to a yearslong battle. (AP)

McDonald’s escalates restaurant industry’s fight over tipping

2 min read . 04 Sept 2025

A Luckin Coffee outlet. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

The Chinese coffee chain that’s muscling in on Starbucks’s turf

8 min read . 27 Jul 2025

McDonald’s has been pushing for beefier deals that will draw in more customers. (Image: Pixabay)

How McDonald’s lost its value edge—and is trying to claw it back

11 min read . 25 Jul 2025

Niccol is doubling down on U.S. baristas writing short messages on customers’ to-go cups and bags.

Smaller menus, better vibes: How Starbucks’s CEO is shaking up the brand

3 min read . 21 Feb 2025

A TGI Fridays in 1994. USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters

The epic mess at TGI Fridays

9 min read . 27 Dec 2024

Coffee chain Starbucks said Monday the ransomware attack affected company-owned stores in its network of around 11,000 sites in North America. (Reuters)

Starbucks, other retailers hit by ransomware attack on tech provider

2 min read . 26 Nov 2024

Brian Niccol in 2021 when he was chief executive of Chipotle. Niccol took the helm at Starbucks in September. Photo: Rozette Rago for WSJ

Starbucks tells workers to return to the office or risk getting fired

1 min read . 30 Oct 2024

Starbucks moved the sugar and milk behind the counter during the pandemic. (REUTERS)

Hope stirs in the fight to free the milk and sugar at Starbucks

4 min read . 16 Oct 2024

Brian Niccol who took over at Starbucks about a month ago, is looking to reset the chain after a rocky year.. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) (AP)

Starbucks scales back discounts under new CEO

3 min read . 14 Oct 2024

Snarled stores and rising prices contribute to employee turnover and declining traffic at Starbucks. (Getty Images)

Incoming Starbucks CEO’s tall order: Calming anxious employees

4 min read . 09 Sept 2024

Chipotle is an exception to broad malaise in the restaurant industry.. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo (REUTERS)

Chipotle’s next boss has one job: Don’t change too much

4 min read . 22 Aug 2024

Plenty of Starbucks’s challenges are unique. (REUTERS)

What’s wrong with Starbucks?

9 min read . 17 Aug 2024

Brian Niccol has found ways to work with the restaurant industry’s famously outsize personalities. Rozette Rago for WSJ

Brian Niccol’s journey from Doritos Locos Tacos to running Starbucks

5 min read . 16 Aug 2024

Current Starbucks chief Laxman Narasimhan has stepped down after roughly 16 months on the job. GRANT HINDSLEY for WSJ

Inside Starbucks’s surprising CEO firing and hiring

8 min read . 14 Aug 2024

The fast-food company said Monday that customers in the U.S. placed fewer orders than they did a year ago, sending same-store sales down nearly 1%.

McDonald’s sales soften as diners make fewer burger runs

2 min read . 29 Jul 2024