Joanna Blythman on coffee chain�s slump

Bad news for Starbucks shareholders, great news for those who resent the ubiquitous coffee chain's omnipresence in our towns and cities. For the first time ever, Starbucks has posted a loss. All year the company has looked sickly - ominous layoffs and reorganisations at head office, revisions of new store-opening targets, that sort of thing. Now it's officially in trouble, closing 600 US stores and 61 in Australia.

That's quite a reversal for a chain that looked unstoppable. Since it began its relentless expansion in the mid-1990s, carpet-bombing every corner with its coffee shops, Starbucks has spread like head lice through a nursery. In March, it had a handsome total of 16,220 outlets worldwide in 44 countries; now it has 15,000. At long last, the Starbucks global coffee miracle is running out of steam.

In just over a decade, Starbucks has earned VIP status at the top table of brands anti-globalisation activists love to hate, along with much longer-established, US-based global brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Wal-Mart. In the same way as the opening of a McDonald's at Rome's iconic Spanish Steps spawned the Italian (now global) Slow Food movement, Starbucks's aggressive, in-your-face invasion of foreign parts has sparked a counter-reaction.

It perhaps wasn't the brightest idea for Starbucks to move into China, for instance, since the Chinese commonly suffer lactose (milk) intolerance, so Java chip frappuccinos and pumpkin spice lattes were always going to get a mixed reaction there. But the bigger mistake was Starbucks' great galumphing foot in the door in the shape of its cheerleading store plonked down inside Beijing's historic Forbidden City. Starbucks was forced to close it last year following widespread protest that its presence "trampled on Chinese culture".

For many Starbucks loathers, however, the motivation is less philosophical or ethical than practical. Familiarity breeds contempt. The Starbucks website has a handy store locator which shows, for instance, that there are 12 branches around Edinburgh and 10 in Glasgow. In the latter, you've got a typical Starbucks city-centre presence - the Exchange Place/Buchanan/Renfield/Bothwell Street cluster - to ensure you're never more than 500 metres away from a store. Why so many? Cynics would insist that Starbucks' aggressive expansion has been all about hoarding prime sites to stop competitor chains getting them. If so, that tactic backfired. For too many people Starbucks's presence has become overbearing.

It seems strange to think now that back in the 1990s, when everyone was glued to Friends, there was a certain chic about being seen tearing around the streets carrying a skinny, mocha, gingerbread, cocoa-dusted Starbucks milkshake for grown-ups, purporting to be coffee. Now Starbucks has lost its gloss. It's beginning to look as down-in-the-mouth as Barbie since those upstart Bratz moved in. That brash, unsubtle American approach has a lot to do with it. It's no coincidence that the UK-based coffee chains, like Costa and Caffè Nero, are faring better. They had the wit and vision to wisely cultivate a more enduring, sophisticated European image.

Even the way that Starbucks communicates increasingly grates. It speaks American corporate language (it employs chummy "partners", not staff), but with a phoney Italian accent. You purchase your "grande" or "venti" from a "barista" and all that, but at the end of the day you're just buying expensive frothed milk from Corporate Coffee Inc, in surprisingly huge measures.

Pre-Starbucks, we were happy with the diminutive, classic Italian espresso, the moderate-sized cappuccino or the Dutch-style filter coffee, and we drank them sitting down. Like so many US food and drink brands, Starbucks likes to supersize everything, not quite such a commercial formula for more health-conscious, waistline-watching times. A Starbucks "venti", for instance, contains 20 fluid ounces; that's a pint in old money, quite a bellyful.

Of course, big scale is as defining a feature of the company's product range as it is of its corporate strategy. By bumping up the measures, and injecting fake diversity by way of sugary flavourings, Starbucks managed to convince many people for quite a number of years to part with the best part of a fiver for a coffee with very little coffee in it - a typical latte is a quarter coffee and three-quarters milk. So, if you thought the most expensive coffee in the world was to be had at Caffè Florian in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, think again. You'll find it at a Starbucks close to you. The company has been crafty, too, in appealing to pocket-money-laden, youthful consumers who didn't traditionally drink coffee with pricey gimmicks, like the frappuccino and smoothie-aping Vivanno.

But now we're all watching our wallets and thinking: "Do I really want to shell out £6 every day for a decaff, tall, low-fat, extra-whip, creme de menthe mocha with a chai spice muffin?" To add to Starbucks's woes, the frothed milk business is becoming an expensive area to be in as global dairy prices skyrocket.

Here's hoping Starbucks' US and Oz slump gets a grip here. Every time a Starbucks shuts its doors, there's a chance a decent independent coffee shop might move in. I'll drink to that.