Well, been around on a limited, fairly local basis – I’m talking about them being a business that we’ve all seen, if not patronized.
Starbucks/coffeeshops are gonna stay, for the reasons mentioned. They are great ‘sit and relax, do work, read, whatever’ places (though some are less ‘loiterer’-friendly than others).
My biggest beef is the disgustingly high prices for dry, packaged cafe food. A sandwich at Starbucks is wicked expensive. I’ll walk a block to the deli down the street and get a huge fresh sub for less money.
Yes, but in places without a local tradition of independent coffee shops, Folgers Instant is pretty much what you could get before Starbucks came there. Dark times.
I envy those who can patronize Starbucks or what have you, then leave. I live on a street with three coffee houses within three blocks of one another. At about 4 pm, my entire neighbourhood reeks of old, burned coffee grounds. Yuck. So I’m holding out for ‘passing fad’.
The comment of McDs not being in schmancy towns made me realize - my old town, the Land of Lexi, only had 1 schmancy-looking McDs, and then not until … 25 years after it was founded to be a snooty little suburb for rich folks (bought before it got hot a small condo). And it was on the very edge of town near the highway exit.
I think they got a Starbucks last year, had an Ofherdalh’s before that. There was a scraggly looking Mc D’s next to and visible from the other side of town, but due to some squiggly line drawing, was actually technically one town over (I found that out when I was looking at larger homes a stones-throw distance from Scraggly McD).
This also, however, is the town with three grocery stores on the main drag (the main drag being less than three miles long). One is actually diagonally across the street from itself (it’s a chain with two stores on diagonal corners). Though again, the two stores diagonally separated by a highway and main road are technically in two different towns.
And the only reason the “new” store opened in town was to give the town council an alternative to approving Wal-Mart’s bid to put a Super Wal-Mart in the Land of Lexi.
Starbucks was already ubiquitous in Boston back in, let’s see – living with someone, just moved in, just transferred to the bank – early 1997.
My new project leader at the bank wanted to buy me a cup of coffee. But not at the Starbucks where we were. No, he liked the one directly accross the street.
And I remember hanging out in a bookstore/cafe back in 1992.
I don’t know if Starbucks the company will stick around (although they probably will), but the concept of the coffeehouse as hangout is pretty old (at least the 17th or 18th century) and will probably remain a permanent fixture in our culture.
Robin, who has spent 3 hours at a time in Panera on about seven bucks’ worth of food.
This brings back memories! I moved into my neighborhood 16 years ago (not where I live now, but a few blocks away). Not long after that, I went food shopping there, and the Pavilions Market had a sort of coffee museum-cum-cart that sold Starbuck’s and explained about the different roasting techniques, with samples of differently roasted beans on display so you could compare Starbuck’s coffee to the usual supermarket brands.
I figured it was just going to be a new brand of coffee to be sold in grocery stores. Was I ever wrong. While I am happy to have Starbuck’s available as an option, I can’t deny that they spelled the end of at least four independent shops that used to be in my neighborhood.
And they made me cry when they bought out & replaced the Coffee Connection. Man I loved their French roast.
Starbuck’s real genius was/is catering in large part to teens. When I was growing up the idea of kids drinking coffee was non-existant. Now they drink all sorts of different coffee drinks and I think a lot of that has to do with Starbuck’s.
And some offer sandwiches.
That was not a reference to the prepackaged sandwiches that Eonwe mentioned but actual made-on-the-spot deli-style ones.
I always called them “threebucks”, although I might start calling them “fourbucks” nowadays.
I’ve only been in a Starbucks once - in a city 6 hours from mine. I went there because I had never been in a Starbucks before, and there weren’t any near me. I had an iced coffee - it was rather disappointing next to a Tim Horton’s Iced Cappuchino.
They will be around for a while. Safeway is the #2 grocery chain here. SB is being remodeled into stores. Safeway in DC metro is now uniformly open at 6 am because people were lined up outside the grocery waiting for Starbucks.
The closest Target now has one.
There are 3 within 5 miles of my house and 4 which I know about within 2 miles of where I work.
I will buy an iced tea on occasion. Spousal unit drinks a LOT of coffee and rarely does Starbucks.
Yeah, I blame Starbucks for my caffeine addiction. A Starbucks opened up in my town (just outside Vancouver) when I was in high school, and it was just the coolest thing ever. Forget pot as a gateway drug - mochas are far more dangerous! 
Admittedly, my perception may be somewhat skewed since I live just up the coast from the epicentre of Starbucks, but I can’t see any way they’re going away any time soon. They’re ubiquitous up here (though it’s not quite as bad as it is in Seattle), and have been for well over a decade now. I personally get sucked in probably 2-3 days a week on my way to work, seduced by the convenience of having one directly across the street from my apartment.
There’s a long history of things starting out in affluent circles, moving down the social chain, and losing favor where they started. It’ll be interesting to see what happen’s to Starbucks’ white-collar customer base once they’ve expanded into less affluent neighborhoods.
This will totaly flabergast all of you, but not everywhere has a Starbucks dispite all the jokes perporting it.
There’s not one in my town of 8,000 residents, with it’s adjoining subdivisions, and all the major highway convergences with through traffic.