In my neighborhood, there’s a Starbucks and a Mom-n-Pop Coffee Shop within a block of each other. Each day, I feel as though I have an ethical dilemma when I choose between the two.
I almost always choose Starbucks. The local place has surly employees, is choked with hipsters, and offers subpar stuff at only a $.50 or so savings. The Starbucks is spacious, has great stuff, and the employees are always borderline-ecstatic - so friendly and cheerful that you’d swear they put prozac in the lattes.
Yet it’s fashionable to bash Starbucks - why? Is there a real reason to oppose them?
All depends on if you like the flavor profile of the coffee they serve. To me it is burned and bitter with nasty carmely overtones. I detest that particular flavor profile. Nothing I have ever been served there was to my taste, so I refuse to patronize them. I will find places that make coffee I like and patronize them, if I am traveling and need caffein I will get a soda, or use my 12 volt coffee drip machine and make my own.
Aside from the fact that I don’t like the way their coffee tastes. Hmm…I don’t think I need another reason actually.
Whenever my girlfriend and I go for coffee we’ll end up at a Second Cup which is a similiar Canadian chain. I don’t really know what I don’t like about the flavour of the coffee at Starbucks, it just seems to taste “burnt”.
In my neighbourhood in L.A. there was a locally-owned coffee house called Petterson’s. It had the serving area, of course; but it also had a large room with big windows where you could hang out and drink your coffee, do your homework, write a script, read a book, or whatever. In the evenings there were often live performances of local bands, poets, etc. who would make use of the stage in the large room. Outside was a magazine stand with roll-up doors that had more 'zines than many book stores. You could buy smokes there, too. There were chairs set up so that people could hang out, drink coffee, read, etc. and enjoy the California weather. (Hey, even I liked it sometimes.) Across Venice Blvd, there was a tiny little Petterson’s that served eastbound drivers. It was just a little coffee house, with very few amenities.
Then Starbucks opened nearby.
The larger Petterson’s closed down. No more hanging out and listening to music. No more picking up a magazine on my walks. No more enjoying the other people who were hanging out.
According to a barrista at the tiny shop across the street, Starbucks made the owner of Petterson’s an ‘offer he couldn’t refuse’. Basically, they paid him gobs of money to close down. Starbucks knew they couldn’t compete with such a hip hangout as Petterson’s, so they built their shop nearby and bribed the owner to close down.
I think that’s reason enough to hate Starbucks. And they’re doing the same thing all across the country.
Also, I heard a few months ago on NPR that Starbucks is buying coffee beans from Indian plantations owned by Tata. Tata is the company that sent ‘consultants’ to my former job, and cost scores of employees their jobs.
I don’t drink coffee–I prefer tea and not what passes for tea at Stabucks–but we have both a Starbucks and a Caribou Coffee in our town.
SB=pissy wait staff(they don’t like lil kids in their place. Guess what? this is suburbia, get used to kids, pronto) and it’s overpriced and lousy atmosphere. (I do think the last is just this one SB).
CC= big leather chairs, nice staff, fireplace, patio. Kid area with chalkboard paint the first four feet off the floor, so that kids can literally draw on the walls. Free newspaper left lying around etc.
I don’t drink coffee either, but I think a lot of anti-Starbucks animus — apart from sheer dislike of their products — has to do with the commoditization and, if you like, the “McDonaldsization” of a product that had heretofore been associated with smaller, quirkier, privately-owned establishments. I think it’s the same reason a lot of people hate Borders, even though Borders stores often have a terrific selection of books; people who are fussy about books don’t associate their avocation with a chain-store mentality.
I think this seems to be the root of the fashionable hatred of them - people have an erroneous concept of “authenticity” that they feel is being commodified and homogenized. I actually make a point to not support “Mom-n-Pop” bookstores because while Borders often doesn’t carry the weirder or more esoteric stuff I’m looking for, the Mom-n-Pops never do.
Vancouver actually has that. Two Starbucks, diagonally opposite each other at the intersection of Robson and Thurlow. They’re both always packed too.
I don’t have anything against Starbucks personally, though I do find their coffee to be over-roasted and somewhat burnt tasting, but not to the point where it’s undrinkable. For me, it pretty much depends on what else is in the neighbourhood - if there’s a smaller non-Starbucks place that I like or that a friend recommends, I’ll go for it, but I do also just go for Starbucks on a relatively regular basis.
As for why people dislike them, aside from not liking the taste of the coffee, I agree with Mr. Blue Sky - it’s that they’re such a huge company, so for a lot of people they’re in the same category with McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, The Gap, Nike and all the other usual targets.
Well, I really only drink coffee that most likely has more sugar than coffee, so my opinion probably doesn’t count for much. That said, I’ve not noticed their (regular) coffee to be appreciably more bitter than what other places are selling. The only thing that keeps me from buying more from Starbucks in the absurd price of even the smallest drinks. Of course, the prices of other coffee shops around here aren’t any lower, so I can’t single out Starbucks in that regard.
As for popularity, the Starbucks across the street from me gets fairly steady traffic from college kids, despite the availability of several other coffee shops in even a one-block radius. For all the random hate* that gets spewed on them, Starbucks seems to be doing fine.
*I’m not talking about people who don’t like the taste, which is a completely understandable complaint; I’m talking about the kids who hate Starbucks (or whoever) because it’s cool to hate Starbucks this week.
That reminds me of the nasty power couple–the Swans–in the film Best In Show, who describe how they met when the looked into each other’s eyes while sitting in Starbucks…across the street from each other. "I know a man who has a van and he will take you back to wherever you came from! "
I dislike Starbucks because they:[ul]
[li]Serve seriously lousy coffee for exaggerated prices,[/li][li]play “lite jazz” or crappy synth-pop over their audio system, [/li][li]make it a mission to drive local businesses out of town, and,[/li][li]have the stupidest, pseudo-Italian names for their products and sizes. Gimme a frickin’ large, will ya?[/li][/ul]
The coffeehouses I typically patronize sell coffee and loose-leaf or good bag tea, let the waitstaff wear whatever hipster gear/nosepiercings/jewelry they like, play good, or at least well-varied music, and don’t have a crowd of people who are trying to rush through all the time. And nobody asks me if I want to “upsize” that to a “grande” or if I’d like a “Chantico”. (I swear, do you people just make this shit up on the fly?)
Besides that, I try to support local businesses (or at least ones I like) whenever possible, just 'cause I like variety instead of the kind of strip-mall homogeneity that has taken over major chunks of most cities. YMMV.
For me, it’s the price and taste. While I don’t mind a Frappuccino every now and then (their coffee’s flavor is suitable for making a milkshake), Center City Philadelphia has many coffee shops, like La Colombe, which serve better coffee at a lesser price.
Assuming her story’s true, wouldn’t that be an equally strong reason to hate the owner of Petterson’s?
Anyway, SB’s coffee is about half the price of the Mom&Pop places around here (tastes about the same, too), the atmosphere’s a lot nicer and the food’s better. I know where my money’s going.
‘Assuming it’s true’? Do you have evidence that it isn’t? :dubious:
Yes, the owner of Petterson’s could have declined; but ‘every man has his price’. Some people are in business to make money. When offered enough money to close a business, they’ll do it. (And he still kept his tiny little shop with nothing to offer consumers except coffee, across the street.) After Starbucks moved in and before Petterson’s was closed, I talked to a lot of customers at Petterson’s. They said they would not go to Starbucks because Petterson’s had more to offer. Starbucks could have done quite well without destroying Petterson’s, but they chose to eliminate the competition.
[Devo] Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
[/Devo]
It seems Starbucks gives consumers what Devo says they want.
See, I’m the opposite when it comes to music. I only support Mom-n-Pop record stores; the one I go to 99% of the time is Record Time in metro Detroit.
I had gone there a few times but wasn’t a devoted fan (yet). Then I went to BestBuy (had a gift card) and wanted to get a CD. They didn’t have it in the store, but it was an American release, several years old. I just asked if they could order it and give me a call when it came in. They said, “We don’t DO special orders.”
Fine. I won’t DO* BestBuy, then.
Instead, I go to the independent Record Time, where they have a lot of new and used in many genres. If you don’t see what you want, you just go up to an employee and ask. Immediately, they’re searching on their computer, and will tell you that they can special order it no problem (in most cases), tell you what the price is up front, and give you a nice detailed message on the phone when your music arrives. Most of the time it gets there in 3-4 days and a lot of the times is cheaper than the price they quote you; it’s often cheaper than even Amazon (before shipping).
So, to slightly relate this back to the OP: I prefer Mom-n-Pop stores (most of the time) because they are more personal, often friendlier and usually are willing to do a little extra to help you out or serve you better.
I worked for an architecture firm that consulted on a starbucks project.
The Starbucks wanted to expand their size, but to lease a bigger space in the current building was next to impossible as all spaces were currently being leased.
The same was true across the street.
The solution was then to rent two spaces, one across the street from each other.
Believe it or not, both were successful.
If you have two buildings that are 30+ stories, each can house a starbucks with no problem. A lot of the firms within the building liked to hire starbucks to service their coffee (starbucks will come by each day or week and drop off supplies). Any customers that walk in off the street are pure profit.
In regards to the Swans on Best in Show, my favorite line was:
He’s lactose intolerant now.
Hey, at least they offer health benefits for their workers. A waitress I knew (from being a regular at a local diner) started working part time at Starbucks just for the benefits. I don’t care for the place, but that alone is a good reason to not hate the place.
That said, I’ve probably gone to Starbucks less than ten times total, mostly when it was suggested by someone else. Besides the silly Vente/Grande/Formaggio sizing, the canned music, the fact that it feels like I’m sitting in a storefront instead of in a coffee shop and that the people behind the counter are retail employees instead of folks working at a coffeeshop, it’s a chain, and all of the profits are leaving town. Some friends own one coffee shop, along with a couple of boutique shops, and they earn enough to live a solidly middle-class life in a desirable part of town, and the wife has time to stay home with the kids. I doubt that anyone working in a Starbucks can do that. That said, I doubt that they offer health benefits, but they probably don’t have to in this college town.
Fortunately, there are two coffeehouse chains in town (Austin, Tx.), so Starbucks probably can’t afford to do that here. Also, the do-it-yourself ethic is strong here, and has been nurtured through the years. It seems that most people hold the attitude that locally-owned stores are intrinsically better than businesses started elsewhere. Personally, I agree that supporting local business and creativity will be better for the city’s economy and for sustaining its health and happiness.
I could see a point to Wal-Mart, in that the value in pure mercantilism is in the products. Little is gained through service, and if you just want a pair of white socks, Bentonville might be able to provide them for less than anyone in town. That said, coffee is cheap, the value in a coffeeshop lies in the service and the whole experience, and I don’t really gett that much out of going to Starbucks.
