This isn’t about the current unionization debate, though was inspired by it.
Whenever I hear Starbucks mentioned in the media, it’s in the context of people criticizing the quality and price of their coffee. There’s often disbelief that the company is so successful.
For me, Starbucks is a co-working hotdesk with a free coffee. As someone who travels a lot, it’s a godsend. I know I can go there, it won’t be too noisy or bright, the wifi and power sockets will work and the chair will be adequately comfy. The coffee, while not the best quality, will at least be large enough that it will last the hour or so that I will typically spend there.
I try to support more local businesses, but it’s very rare for them to get the things in the above list right. And they aren’t significantly cheaper anyway, especially when you factor in the much smaller cups they usually use.
The only places that seem to significantly undercut Starbucks are other chains, like Nero (might be British only).
I dislike the way they drove small coffee shops under but for me it is mostly about taste. I understand their style of roasting coffee is popular but it doesn’t taste good to me. I’m not sure why. I don’t know enough about coffee to break down the issue.
Everything else you list seems like a reasonable reason to like them.
Also, I’m moving this to the Café, for I think obvious reasons.
When a friend was remodeling his bar, I suggested he add purse hooks, electrical outlets, high speed wifi, and a few other things. He did and noted people loved the cheap upgrade.
Eons ago, I traveled to Puerto Rico on business. As dinner time approached, I was tired and just didn’t feel like taking a risk vis-a-vis food.
I saw that there was a location of the Chart House Restaurant near my hotel. I knew them from home.
Dinner was delicious, if unspectacular. Service was quite good. Ambience and décor were what I was used to.
IOW, safe.
I think you basically made the same point. Maybe the coffee in the indy shops is as good as, or better than, St. Arbucks, but many of the peripherals – things that may be equally important to you at the time – are far more variable.
To me, the inherent problem with most (food & beverage) chains is also their strength: the dreaded homogeneity/sameness of them all.
Agreed, and I don’t like milk, cream, flavorings, sugar, etc in my coffee and it feels like Starbucks is all about a final product that contains oodles of those things, and that far fewer people go to Starbucks to get a cup of unmodified black coffee. It just isn’t good there.
I do like a place where I can sit and use my computer. They did good by themselves to have stepped into that niche.
Setting up a fake access point is about as old as wifi itself. I’m surprised that article came out in 2021. Don’t connect to a network anywhere unless you know what you’re connecting to.
For me the appeal is convenience and speed. The ones around here are almost always too crowded to sit down and do any kind of work, so I don’t really take into consideration the seating. But if you want a quick cup of coffee that you don’t have to make yourself, Starbucks is the way to go. IMHO this is why they were so effective at driving so many of the local mom and pop places out of business. The way I remember it, the model of the mom and pop places was to take the order of the person at the front of the line, chat with them while slowly preparing their order and maybe trying to upsell a pastry or bagel, which then also has to be prepared / toasted. Once the person at the front of the line finally has their completed order, then, the next person in line can step up. For those sitting at tables rather than ordering carryout, there was usually only one waiter, who was also slow because they would usually be chatting with one of the other customers. Starbucks showed we don’t have to wait for 30 minutes to get a cup of coffee.
I’m bewildered by the comments about Starbucks as a comfortable (or at least adequate) working environment. Five-ish years ago I was in the position of having to kill time in a wide variety of different places across SoCal, and I often landed at Starbucks for the free wi-fi… And they were uniformly uncomfortable. Hard, narrow chairs were my chief complaint. I assumed they used that kind of seating on purpose to as to discourage folk from using it as a free office space.
Maybe California is not the best place to make the comparison…I worked for a few weeks in SF and there was an abundance of cool coffee places.
Heck, maybe that explains the phenomenon I outlined in the OP…if a lot of the opinion pieces are written by people living in California, then, yeah, I can see why Starbucks just looks bad overall. A poor man’s Peet’s Coffee, at best.
I think the seating and the coffee both depend on what you are comparing them to. Starbuck’s seats are more comfortable than those in McDonalds and while Starbucks coffee might not be as good as Peets or a mom and pop coffee bar, it’s usually better than the coffee at 7-11 or a diner. Not to mention that although I don’t like flavoring in my coffee , I do like espresso and espresso drinks and you can’t get those just anywhere that sells drip coffee.
I don’t have any cites handy but the better evidence is that Starbucks created a market for premium coffee and coffee shops in general, creating a niche in which small coffee shops could compete and thrive. Generally, there were many more independent coffee shops in a given place after Starbucks started its rapid ascent in the 1990s. For a long time, one of the most successful independent business types (based on factors like their likelihood to survive for a year or two after starting) were coffee shops, which have low cost of goods, high margins, and predictable sales. Starbucks helped America discover they could get better coffee than was available at diners and doughnut shops and convinced America’s financiers and entrepreneurs that there was money to be made slinging coffee. Once people started buying Starbucks coffee, there was room for independents to try to offer even better coffee at various price points, either at a premium to Starbucks or cheaper as a relative value. Starbucks didn’t kill independent coffee shops; they prodded them into existence.
I don’t drink coffee but I did think about investing in an independent coffee shop at one point. Starbucks did not scare me away.
People like Starbucks for a lot of different reasons but it helps that you get a predictable experience. If you know how to ask for what you want, you can get exactly what you ask for at any Starbucks. It’s a comfortable choice for a day-to-day pick-me up, when you switch jobs, when you travel, or if you need to meet someone you don’t know that well. Everyone knows Starbucks and Starbucks is always right there.
I’ve been secretly replacing the regular chairs in Starbucks with rock hard, ergonomically dysfunctional IKEA chairs and secretly filming people with hidden cameras. Let’s see if people notice.
Yeah, but Starbucks espresso is uniformly horrible now, since they completely turned to an automatic machine process which produces a horrible shot. At the mom and pop shops you’ve a chance of having an actual skilled barista pull a godshot for you, or know how to make a decent ristretto on request.
I don’t drink their coffee, as I don’t like coffee that much, but I do enjoy their “refreshers”. Basically fruit drinks. The mango dragonfruit kind is my favourite. I also get their chocolate croissants every once in a while.
I wonder if those that disbelieve had a bunch of local coffee companies around pre-Starbucks? Because it was pretty rare to find a decent cup of coffee in a lot of the country. I find Starbuck’s Pike Place roast to be perfectly fine and their lattes are decent enough - but at least I know it’ll be a decent quality rather than random coffee place.
That reminds me, before Starbuck’s “coffee shop” referred to something completely different. It was a small restaurant that was similar to a lunchonette or diner. No espresso drinks
NYC and some towns in NJ had actual coffee shops. Starbucks did knock a lot of these out.
Additionally NY & NJ have a lot of excellent diners with good coffee. I would never consider Starbucks good coffee.
But when I was walking around Manhattan and feeling a little tired, I would look for the corner coffee shop and get a good cup of coffee and some small snack. Once Starbucks 7 Dunkin Donuts overwhelmed Manhattan, the choices got pretty limited. So I guess it really did vary by area.
There was a busy corner near Broadway that ended up with 3 Starbucks and a Hersey’s store as the 4 corner stores. I don’t actually know what use to be there as I was far from a regular, but that was the height of insane to me.
I just checked, that craziness is resolved at least, The Hersey’s store no longer shares a corner with 3 Starbucks. But searching for Starbucks in the area does pull up dozens. WTF?
This is the reason for their success - consistency. You go into any 'Bucks and you know what you are going to get, just like any fast-food chain. The peripherals they offer are part of the “safeness” of it all.
Also, I suspect coffee still is somewhat mysterious for some people, and they have not really been exposed to a fine cup of coffee, so until that happens, “coffee = Starbucks”.
