This struck me too. Starbucks sells an optional luxury good, and when money is tight, optional luxury goods are (or should be) the first things people jettison.

This struck me too. Starbucks sells an optional luxury good, and when money is tight, optional luxury goods are (or should be) the first things people jettison. When I've been broke, I wouldn't have even considered buying anything that Starbucks (or similar) sells. I'm buying less of actual necessities such as food, and the price of one latte can buy several meals worth of basic foodstuffs. Even if I decide to splurge and buy an occasional fancy coffee drink, I'd be getting it from a place that makes better ones than Starbucks. But I suspect he's using "cash-strapped" in the sense of "a temporary cash-flow problem" when most normal people will interpret the term as meaning "actually broke".