Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) may have a 'grande'-sized PR problem.

Coffee connoisseurs may notice a few changes have been made to the chain’s outdoor menus. The vendor has removed several options offered on its regular menu from its outdoor menu, including the ‘tall’, or 12-ounce, coffee option, displaying only the ‘grande’ and ‘venti,’ (16 and 20 ounces, respectively) to its drive-through consumers, as was noted last week on The Consumerist blog.

In an email to FOXBusiness.com, a Starbucks spokesperson said the change reflects the company's efforts to simplify menu options, since customers had complained the old outdoor menu was "cluttered." The company redesigned the menus to make "ordering easier and more efficient by reducing the number of featured items and adding more product photography," the company said. 

The number of items on the outdoor menu was reduced by two-thirds, from 75 items to 25, and the company claims the new menus display an array of choices based upon customer popularity, meaning most drive-through consumers order drinks in the larger sizes. 

The Seattle-based Starbucks is still allowing consumers to order snacks and beverages, including the ‘tall’-sized drinks from the indoor menu when using the drive-through, despite what’s listed on the outdoor menu. The company said it is always taking input regarding menu boards from its customers into consideration, "so what we have today could always change again in a few months," a spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement.

Other media reports quoted the company as denying that price was a factor in motivating the smaller size and some other options to be dropped.  While the company reportedly refutes claims of price motivation, the timing of the change is interesting, considering coffee bean prices have soared 43% since June of this year. On Wednesday, coffee bean futures settled at $1.9455 per pound, after rallying to $1.9865 per pound earlier in the session. On Thursday, prices were down slightly, to $1.9185.

The price hike has been blamed on increased demand, coupled with bad weather impacting production levels in Vietnam and Central America, according to the International Coffee Organization's market report for August 2010.

The increase in coffee bean prices has prompted other coffee companies to increase prices, with J.M. Smucker Co. announcing last month it would up its prices an average of 9% on the majority of its coffee brands, including Folgers, Dunkin' Donuts, Millstone, and Folgers Gourmet Selections.

Starbucks told Dow Jones Newswires last month that it has no plans to increase prices and said it plans to absorb a four-cent-per-share hit to its earnings in fiscal 2011, due to higher commodity prices.