Governor Malloy will able to get a java at Starbucks this weekend in downtown Hartford. Eyewitness News has learned the Starbucks at CityPlace will open for limited hours this Saturday and a week from Sunday, presumably to take advantage of the crowds expected for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and O’Hartford 5K road race.
Malloy’s complaint in January on Face the State about the Starbucks being closed later received national attention when he asked about it on MSNBC. Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough said they would have to talk to the CEO of Starbucks about it. Starbucks sponsors “Morning Joe.” Did the CEO get involved?
More importantly, the governor’s complaint brought attention to a long standing problem with downtown Hartford: very few establishments open on Sundays, creating a ghost town atmosphere that is disappointing to downtown residents and downright perplexing to tourists at the Convention Center, hotels, and Connecticut Science Center.
Will this Starbucks open other weekends? Will it lead to other merchants opening on Sundays? Stay tuned.
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Dennis House blog 
The O’Hartford 5K isn’t until next weekend. There’s still time to sign up! http://bit.ly/oTFGY3
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Really??? THIS makes the news!!
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If the governor is serious about a Sunday Starbucks he might try appealing to them with statistics and incentives vs trying to shame them into staying open and losing money on the deadest day of the week.
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It was funny during the Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament hearing all of the out of towners complaning about how very little there is to do after 5pm in downtown. Especially Tuesday night during the UConn/Notre Dame final, I happened to be standing waiting for a friend right outside of Starbucks. They close at 6:30pm, and there were SO many people heading up to the XL Center from the Bushnell Park area wanting to stop in to get a Starbucks, trying the doors, seeing they were locked, and the response was all the same: “What kind of city is this where you can’t even get a coffee? Hartford sucks!!!”
But of course, as long as Mr 1% that lives on the West Hartford border keeps looking through his rose-colored glasses and pretending everything is just perfect as long as he has his coffee on Saturday morning, everything will be fine.
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