I’ve always wondered, if I opened up a Fedallah’s cafe, or simply Moby’s, if they would have a problem with that. Typical offerings would be medium-dark roast straight espresso, Turkish coffee, and miscellaneous methods as long as it comes out twice as strong.
Who is “they”?
Starbucks corporate, protecting their brand name from this coffee startup that conveniently just happened to also have a Moby-Dick name.
There’s only one way to find out. Do it, and see if they sue you,
-Pops up optical periscope to see if the possessed Paprika monster has moved on to the feed on the minds of others-
Ahem. So, prior to Starbucks dominance of the industry, my favorite chain was Barnie’s Cafe which used to be spread far and wide, and is currently down to 6 locations in FL (don’t know if it’s the original, remnants, or was aquired). This would have been around 1998 if I remember correctly, and they had damn good coffee, including true Blue Mountain coffee before blends were available everywhere.
They were more a high end coffee (bean) place, that happened to sell a small assortment of snacks and brewed beverages, but filled the same sort of niche - people would stop by, get a pound of coffee to take home, and maybe have a snack and drink to talk to friends. And their roasts and flavors were all over the place, and you could blend the flavors for some incredible options. At the time, Starbucks was a thing, and growing, but the folks at the shop looked down on them for the same reasons we have - ‘burnt’ coffee, small selection of actual beans and blends, and too damn sweet.
Here we are, over 2 decades later, and we see who has won. It reminds me of Demolition Man.
-checks quickly, and realizes that he might be giving the PaprikaBOT ideas, drops periscope-
The thing about parallel lines is they are never normal. They say they never cross but clearly they do.
The way the U.S. market works, the most popular product will always be the most mediocre one. This isn’t like Italy or France or Japan, where consumers at every price point demand quality. Americans are very willing to sacrifice quality for price and convenience.
Oh, there is a cost. When you join a cult, there is always a price to be paid: your sanity, your self-respect, your ‘soul’, your first-born, your everlasting allegiance to an implacable and existential horror. There is always a cost.
Stranger
How did you get through the 90’s without drinking Folgers? That’s always been good.
I would say 80s. If you lived in an urban area, by the 90s you could find plenty of good coffee joints. And I’d even go back to the 80s, too. For mainstream coffee, yeah, I could maybe see “through the 90s.”
No obvious cost. Few know about their secret menu. Ask for the Nyarlathotep Blend, Yog-Sothoth macchiato or Miskatonic Mix. That is not dead which can eternal lie. R’lyeh. Really?
No. Folgers was not good. No grocery store coffee was ever good. I don’t know whether Folgers is selling fresh roasted whole beans now, but in the United States, if you were buying coffee grounds from a store, you were not getting good coffee.
Meanwhile, in Canada…
Coffee in the ‘Eighties was so bad people literally couldn’t tell the difference between “fresh brewed” and instant “crystals”:
Of course, approximately 84% of Americans were also smoking unfiltered Camels and Luckys by the carton so the idea that they could taste anything over the tar-coated lung tissue they were constantly coughing up is questionable at best.
Stranger
I contend that Eight O Clock coffee whole beans or ground in-store made acceptable coffee when prepared well.
“Acceptable” - better than the worst? Everything is relative of course.
Bottom line, if they couldn’t tell you the date it was roasted, then it wasn’t good coffee.
That’s really my thing as well. I drink coffee, but I’m not particularly interested in fancy coffee. Just a regular drip coffee does the job just fine. Maybe a cappucino if I’m feeling particularly decadent, or am actually in Italy.
So with that in mind, Starbucks is pretty much the most commonly found coffee shop, so I’m familiar with them, as they’re always nearby if I need a cup of coffee and I’m out and about. But I don’t seek them out either; many convenience stores have decent coffee these days, as well as some fast food restaurants. Their food is an absolute ripoff; it’s very expensive for both the portion size and the quality.
Yet despite that, the local Starbucks will all have lines around the building and the parking lots are crowded. They’re kind of like Chik-Fil-A to me; nothing wrong with their product or service, but the overwhelming popularity is absolutely unfathomable to me when there are lots of equivalent alternatives that don’t involve waiting in line.
I’m with @pulykamell - their beans aren’t anything special. Eight O’Clock and several other grocery store brands are as good or better than Starbucks.
I’m sure this phenomenon has been studied by sociologists and given smarty-pants names, but there’s definitely a herd mentality of “I want to go to the place with the line; they must be good!”
Stranger
It’s more likely just convenience and familiarity. They know exactly what to expect from Starbucks, and they are everywhere. They get consistency of experience, service, price, and product. That’s exactly what makes the franchising model so successful. They don’t have to ever wonder what to expect when going into an unfamiliar place.