You'll have had your coffee. It's probably not an advertising slogan which Starbucks would want to adopt but after announcing that it is closing down 600 shops in America, the phrase looks pretty apt.

The multi-million pound international coffee chain admitted yesterday that the move might be partly due to an attempt to expand its already massive stake in the cafe culture industry "a bit too quickly". Add rising food prices and the impact of the credit crunch to the brew and the future of cafe chains looks increasingly bleak.

While Starbucks said yesterday that it had no plans to shut any of its 50 or so Scottish outlets, there are signs that the market in Scotland is also faltering.

Just last month, homegrown coffee house chain Beanscene was sold to smaller rival Tinderbox after failing to secure backing for its own expansion plans.

Founder Gordon Richardson, who stepped down when the sale was made to pursue a new business venture, said at the time that some investors were nervous about expanding in the current economic climate.

Last year, after Starbucks pledged to open so many new stores that Londoners were "never more than five minutes away from a Starbucks", Mr Richardson complained that the company was saturating the marketplace like "an episode from the Simpsons where every shop in the block is Starbucks".

At first sight the roaring trade at a branch of Starbucks in Edinburgh's Royal Mile yesterday lunchtime suggested that the days of splashing out on frappuccinos and the like were far from over but speaking to customers a more mixed picture emerged.

Student Sally Brown, 34, said: "It has become a luxury for me now. I only go for the cheapest, I don't do lattes or anything and I come here only every two or three weeks. I think Starbucks probably has flooded the market and I imagine they are feeling the pinch because they picked up so much premium real estate."

Advertising manager Natalie Smith, 29, enjoying a tall chai tea latte for around £2.50, said: "I'd be happy to pay £3.50 for a coffee because it's about the experience, sitting here for an hour's entertainment, watching people go by. That makes it worthwhile.

"But I have noticed that Starbucks have taken away their sofas recently. I think they have changed the surroundings to get people in and out more quickly. I don't go to Starbucks so often now."

At the same table 23-year-old manager Sarah Donaldson was drinking a small soya milk latte with extra espresso shot. She said: "This cost £2.55, you could get a jar of coffee for that. I come Monday to Friday because for me it's a necessity, not a luxury.

"There probably are too many cafes now. There's nearly one on every corner of Princes Street."

With coffee chains operating in some form everywhere from city centres to airports, railway stations, motorways and even hospitals, they are hard to avoid.

At Edinburgh University, retail marketing expert Professor John Dawson said: "When Starbucks have gone into a new country they have expanded rapidly and that has been the basis of their success. If they opened only one or two outlets in a new country it would not work. They have to expand rapidly to create a marketplace, to create something in the minds of consumers. They did that quite successfully in Japan, for example."

He added: "There is certainly a move in the US towards consumers buying more ready meals to eat at home, which probably has a knock-on effect on people having coffees out. The UK market has not grown as substantially as that in the US, however, so any fall-off may not be so dramatic here."

Starbucks said that the stores being closed were underperforming. The firm added however that 70% of those outlets had opened since the start of 2006.

A spokeswoman said: "There is a concern that perhaps the stores were not in the right places or perhaps maybe we were doing it opening them too fast."