Letters to the Editor
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I'll be smoking crack in the parking lot.
Wave hello minivan mom, wave hello.
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free coffee
A growing E. Lansing, MI-based chain called Biggby Coffee (formerly Beaner's) has all of it's Grand Rapids area locations offering all of their specialty coffee drinks for free during the time of Starbuck's training. In some cases they are located right across the street from area Starbucks. I may be going to one on my way home from work.
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What is up with Starbuck's baked goods?
This is a chain that regularly sells $5 coffees, but they stock those glass display cases with pretty-looking and horrible-tasting piles of stale, alternately doughy or dry dog-biscuity cannon-fodder.
Why is it that a major chain like Starbucks cannot see there way to offering a decent muffin? How can a place that offers the coffee equivalent of a hot fudge sundae with extra caramel not find something sinfully delicious to put on the side of a plain old Americano?
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More non dairy options please
Here in LA I switched from Starbucks to neighborhood shops when possible and Coffee bean if I have no other choice. Partly to support local businesses like Abbott's Habit. The other reason I avoid the green monster is they won't do a blended mocha with Soy (last time I checked) or use soy in their lattes. This can't be a technical limitation since other places, including Coffee Bean, have no problem with this. Its not that I want to live up to a hollywood elitist liberal stereo type, its just that dairy based drinks often force me to spend a good portion of the day in the bathroom. So Starbuck's listen up - expand your options for the lactophobic!
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When PR Bites In the Butt
I guarantee that Starbucks is doing this for the PR value of it (look how much coverage it's getting), but Dunkin' Donuts is going to be the real beneficiary.
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Starbucks is Rancid
What we have here is just another blatant attempt by Starbucks to get a bunch of free advertising (which mainstream corporate media never bored of shamelessly providing). Starbucks are really awful places that cater to an elitist clientele that live in a blissful consumer paradise. I found it interesting that you, Manjoo, do not even mention independent cafes in your article, of which there are many. Starbucks is only interested in profit, their coffee is actually quite bad. There were cafes long before Starbucks and there will be cafes (hopefully) long after Starbucks. It is highly annoying how our capitalist culture fetishizes entities like Starbucks into demigods. Isn't it amazing that the richest cafe corporation gets all the free advertising while the smallest cafe companies just get buried? Why must this disturbed society forever be rooting for the interests that have already won? It is sick. Starbucks has no love for anyone, their workers aren't even allowed to unionize! To hell with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and all the other winners. (I suppose so many root for those who have already won because it is such a safe bet; here is to the winners losing and the little guys getting a fair shake.
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Is he joking?
"...one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store."
Obviously, that's because Starbucks IS a chain of stores which has caused any number of neighborhood coffee shops to go under when the Wal-Mart of coffee moved in across the street...and down the block...and down the block in the other direction. He's gotta puzzle this out?
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Starbucks coffee tastes burned
What's the deal with that, anyway?
I'd rather go to a local coffee shop (and I do) but I prefer Caribou coffee over Starbucks. It just tastes better (i.e. not burned). And for those who blab on about how Starbucks (and other coffee shops) are "elitist"--just buy a regular coffee, eh? It's cheaper than a coffee "drink", and even Starbucks' coffe is better than what you can get at your local gas station.
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@Ranson, Starbucks helps mom-and-pop coffee shops
According to the author of Starbucked:
http://www.slate.com/id/2180301
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The US is feeling anti-corporate
and everyone's getting hit right in the ass, from the CEO's on down. We're feeling anti-corporate because it was corporations that told us to go out and buy homes we couldn't afford. We're feeling anti-corporate because they send good, decent paying jobs away and decide that working at Starbucks is "good enough". We're feeling it because Corporate America seems to think we owe them our allegiance and our work when we've been repaid with nothing but benefit cuts and outsourcing since. And now, years after they decided to keep our wages as low as possible, when we can't afford $6 coffee and a visit to the doctor, are they beginning to feel the pain. And their response? "We need to get our soul back?"
Sorry guys. Welcome to the American Dream. We've been living it for awhile now. Pull up a chair and enjoy watching Rome burn. Just remember, you started the fire.
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My single biggest Starbucks peeve.
The thing that fills me with hate at Starbucks, and seems trivial to everyone else, is the drink size nomenclature. Tall? Grande? Venti? What's wrong with Small, Medium and Large, which I use anyway out of pure stubbornness? Of course the clerks are sure to correct me every time with a look of stern disapproval if I don't use their pretentious drink size labels. I dread getting dragged into Starbucks on this basis alone.
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@ oxymoron
It is interesting how you say Starbucks coffee is bad but then go on to say it isn't so bad. It is almost as if you just cannot bring yourself to actually dislike Starbucks because you find them charming or something.
Starbucks is soulless, they treat their employees like crap and they practically steal their beans from third world peoples who must toil day and night just to make a living. Meanwhile Starbucks steals its name from "Moby Dick", which few people seem aware of, and make ridiculous profits. What is to like about Starbucks besides they've put themselves in eye sight of everyone? (which, by the way, I also despise about them).
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It's not "free" advertising
Sure, they're getting a lot of publicity from this, but remember that they had to shut down all stores for three hours to do it. Whatever that costs, it's more than zero, and thus not "free."