Not their coffee, but I LOVE their Vanilla Chai… yes, it’s all cream and sugar, but boy, is it good!
Absolutley not. I’m one of those former ma & pop baristas who is particularly picky about the quality of his espresso and drip coffee. However, sometimes, you just want a good ol’ American-style watered-down big cup o’ joe. And of all the fast food and doughnut places, Dunkin Donuts seems to do it the best. In fact, I prefer Dunkin Donuts coffee to Starbucks.
I dislike their coffee. Now note I don’t out and out hate their coffee, just would rather have coffee that tastes good, instead of sort of OK but sort of burnt tasting. If I can’t find a good place, I will chose SB’s over a unknown sometimes.
I hate that I got a free $20 gift card for them, because I feel I must use it. I was so glad when it ran out.
I don’t particularly like the taste of their coffee (and speaking as someone who drinks a pot of coffee a day, I’m a coffee fiend), but after what their NYC store did on 9/11, I’ll never give the company a dime, if I can help it.
This is dependent on being in a town large enough to make the chains want to be there, and want to put money into the few locations that are there.
Here on the ass end of nowhere, if you want a CD that’s even marginally obscure, you bypass the exceedingly crappy Sam Goody (which is in a dying mall way out of town anyway) and head to the local music store/bookstore/video rental place, Creative Leisure. (Yes, it does all three, with a focus on video rental. It does all of them pretty well, mainly because the owner and employees are willing and able to order stuff in, something Sam Goody can’t or won’t allow its peons to do. Plus, it rents some really good shows, like MST3K episodes.) If Creative Leisure doesn’t have it and can’t get it, you go online because the nearest big town is Great Falls, which is fairly craptacular itself in addition to being two and a half hours away.
As for book buying, I’ve gotten the best book deals in my life at local used book stores. (Good deals in terms of getting books at a fraction of their value to me, not just buying books cheaply.) There used to be a used book store here in town, but it closed down years ago and my personal library is the poorer for it.
Oh, and back on topic: I had the worst damned cup of coffee in my life when I got an espresso at Starbuck’s. Despite the cost, I could not finish it. I had to throw it away. The only drink I buy at Starbuck’s is chai tea.
I dislike Starbucks because they charge waaay too much for their coffee, and they pay their CEO waaaay too much money. I’m also not impressed with their coffee. You know something is wrong when you’re paying $4 for a coffee.
I cannot believe all the suckers out there who buy their coffee…
[url-http://www.illwillpress.com/coffeehouse.html]all these posts so far, and no one haslinked to Foamy’s rants on the subject yet 
personally, i’m a grind-it-myself kinda’ guy, get some good fresh Green Mountain, run it thru my burr grinder and make a fresh pot of Liquid Caffiene Delivery Vehicle™…
Heh. We don’t have Target up here, so it honestly didn’t even occur to me.
And I forgot to mention last night that I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s something odd about the way Starbucks brews their coffee, even the regular drip coffee. You can’t do much about the fact that the beans are over-roasted, but I can get much better tasting coffee out of their beans if I brew some at home versus what you can get at one of their shops. It’s not that their coffee sits too long, since pretty much every Starbucks I’ve ever seen has been far too busy for anything to wind up sitting around for really any amount of time, but there’s definitely something up with how they brew it.
I’m not a big fan of Starbucks. But I find myself there every month or so when I’m stuck at the mall and they’re the only place for coffee. Rather, they’re the only place I half-way trust to make a cup of coffee that’s marginally less crappy than the other places. The shops I frequent are often grubby, with indifferent workers. The music is awful and too loud. Every single shop is too stinking dark. There’s too many over-priced, fluffy, diabetic-coma inducing, milky coffee ‘treats’ and not enough simple, good coffee. But damned if I don’t get in line.
I’ll teach them; I order my drinks in small, medium or large, none of that venti stuff. Then I go home and hug my french press.
Without having read the rest of the thread, I can offer that I hate the bastards because I once stopped at a Starbucks on campus on my way to class for a soy hot chocolate, for which I was charged five fking dollars*. :mad:
The identical beverage at the Java Hut, two bucks.
Perhaps it’s the cup you use, I have noticed a different taste between paper, foam, ceramic, plastic, stainless steal. I’m not saying I could ID them in a blind taste test, but there is a difference.
Also the price I get at most starbucks are less then $2/cup, but I don’t buy into those fancy coffee like drinks.
Going back to the original question…if the Mom-n-Pop gives bad service or bad coffee then there should be no dilemma. BUT if they give equal service and products then you have to ask yourself if you want to support Corporate America or the small business owner?
I don’t drink that much coffee but feel Starbucks suffers the same curse all of the chains do…inconsistent service and products. We have a small chain in South Florida called Oferdahls (sp) that is owned by a former miami Dolphin. The service there is always great and the selection is such you can go anytime of the day and eat light food or have good (ish) coffee.
As matter of fact the story is Einstein Bagels bought him out years ago because he was such competition. As soon as his non-compete was up he re-opened!!!
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I’ve loathed Starbucks ever since one opened up across the street from MY cafe when I was in high school. My favorite place to hang out, where I knew the owner and all the employees, and it went out of business almost immediately after Starbucks opened. A hangout for high school kids can’t compete with a mecca for yuppies. I get the free market economic system, but I was sixteen and bitter about my hangout being taken away.
I’ve spent money at Starbucks once, in the Atlanta airport. I would have killed for a cocoa, and Starbucks was the only place open (it was like 6.30 am). I still feel guilty about it.
I’m not a coffee drinker at all, actually, so that aspect isn’t interesting to me, but I like cafes for the atmosphere. Fortunately, there are a couple nice cafes much closer to my apartment than the nearest Starbucks, so the fact that I would walk a mile out of my way to find a non-Starbucks cafe isn’t even an issue.