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Jim Cramer says don’t count Starbucks out — not with turnaround specialist Brian Niccol at the helm. Despite a bruising quarter for Starbucks and Wednesday’s 7% drop in shares, Jim is standing by the stock and the CEO, who is only roughly 7½ months on the job. “It’s Brian Niccol. He’s the best there is,” Jim said on “Squawk on the Street” on Wednesday, defending the Starbucks CEO after the company released a disappointing quarter the night before. “It was obviously a bad hand. People didn’t know how bad the hand was,” Jim explained, referring to the problems that Niccol inherited when he jumped ship as CEO of Chipotle to try to overhaul the struggling coffee giant. Starbucks shares sank as much as 11% on Wednesday to under $76 per share after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings per share (EPS) and revenue for its fiscal 2025 second quarter. While same-store sales in the U.S. missed, international, as a whole, beat, and China was flat, which broke a four-quarter streak of declines. Jim sees the stock dip as a buying opportunity. “We would buy some Starbucks [Wednesday], but now we’re restricted,” he said during our Morning Meeting . We trimmed our Starbucks position on Feb. 10 north of $111 per share and then again on Feb. 28 at nearly $115, which at the time was a 52-week high. We knew that the turnaround wasn’t going to be easy. We bought back some of those shares last week when they were down 30% since our last sale. It proved to be a bit early. Now, we’re looking to buy again when we get the chance. SBUX YTD mountain Starbucks YTD The confidence Jim has in Niccol comes straight from the CEO’s messaging during Wednesday’s CNBC interview. “[Niccol] said nothing that indicates to me that this turnaround isn’t on track,” Jim reflected. He added that Niccol saying he’s buying Starbucks stock “all the time” really stood out. We’re aware that the turnaround won’t be linear, but Wall Street hoped for quicker progress, especially since Niccol turned Chipotle around in less than a year when he took over as CEO of that company in 2018. Before Chipotle, Niccol helped revive the Taco Bell brand. Jim stressed that Starbucks is a different kind of challenge. “I don’t know if people remember but Chipotle had just been implicated in one of the worst situations you could possibly have as a restaurant – people were getting sick all over the country. In six months, he turned it. Ok, so now, we are six months in [with Starbucks], and that’s why analysts are saying, ‘six months and where is the turn?’ Can I just point out that Chipotle was a better company than Starbucks; he had something to work with,” Jim said. Niccol himself acknowledged that the early payoff won’t be to the financials. “In the near term, earnings will lag,” the CEO told CNBC. “But if you drive growth, do the right thing for the customer (and) our partner, the financial performance comes with it.” Part of that effort at Starbucks includes pilot stores testing Niccol’s new strategy. Early results are promising, with average cafe and drive-thru wait times down and mobile orders hitting on-time marks. A major shift has been moving investment away from equipment and toward labor. “The solution is figuring out the right staffing, the right deployment, so our partners are set up for success and therefore give our customers a great experience and great connection,” Niccol said on Tuesday evening’s post-earnings conference call. He noted that a 700-store pilot showed better staffing boosted service speed, customer connections, and transactions. Niccol said on CNBC that he’s trying to get costs under control and balance them against investing in the business. He said Starbucks was previously too concerned about the “back of the house” production and not enough on the “front of the house” consumer experience. He also reiterated that Starbucks won’t raise prices this year — and in fact, he pointed to the company’s removal of up-charges for dairy alternatives such as coconut and almond milk. Looking ahead to 2026, there’s more for investors to look forward to. Niccol said that next year the company will be focusing on rebuilding its innovation pipeline with plans to develop new food and beverage offerings, improving the digital experience, and updating Starbucks’ rewards program. The CEO framed the strategy as long-term and foundational, saying it’s all about setting Starbucks up to be “the global iconic brand that it is.” In CNBC’s interview, Niccol also said that Starbucks will be a long-term player in China, though he didn’t rule out getting some local expertise through partnerships. He did point to the flat China comps as evidence that store traffic in the world’s second-largest economy is coming back. He added that he is not seeing any impact on business from the U.S.-China trade war. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long SBUX. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. 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Chipotle Mexican Grill CEO Brian Niccol speaks with CNBC’s Kate Rogers at the CNBC Evolve conference November 19th in Los Angeles.
Jesse Grant | CNBC
Jim Cramer says don’t count Starbucks out — not with turnaround specialist Brian Niccol at the helm.
