If you are on the East Coast, you are probably experiencing the absence of Starbucks service right now. As each hour goes by, each time zone with be shorted the rot-gut Starbucks calls coffee, for three hours. I know, what an awful thing to say about my wife's one time employer. To be honest, I have never been a fan. What I imagine was a grassroots, earthy, holistic mecca for caffeine lovers is trying to return to it's roots. It is too bad they serve burnt beans to their guests, charge outrageous amounts of money for it, and brainwash anyone in a green or black bib-apron that everyone else has it wrong.
My brother-in-law, Thane, isn't a fan either. While being stationed in Iraq, soldiers on the base, he was on, contacted Starbucks to be an alternative of the coffee there and were denied. The basis of it was they publicly said, they were not in support of the war. By sending over anything would endorse any military action the government has made. The soldiers were smarter than that and started contacting the stores nearby where they were stationed Stateside. Those managers were understanding of the fact that those soldiers would come in and pay for an over priced latte, when they were home, and did what they could to encourage our soldiers.
For me, I don't like them, for the fact they have been crushing the little guy for a long time. It's funny to hear from some one who has worked in a national chain that would rather the mom-n-pop store over the big guy any day of the week. There is something to appreciate about the smaller store, they bother, they care, they work hard to get to know who is there. Take The Cup, the owners once owned Super Joe's, and that is where I had met them. To this day, they tease me because I don't have a sweet tooth and drink my large coffee with 1.5 tablespoons of sugar. If I had never went in to their first place when it open, largely due to convenience, that's a relationship I would not have. Now, when I have money, time and reason to spend a few hours in Boulder, I'll think of going there over anywhere else. I don't pay for consistency, rather I like to support the little guy.
Granted, the big guy has somethings working for them, consistency of product. I worked in a national chain of restaurants for years. The one thing we prided ourselves on was consistency. I worked outside the Denver market and it was consistent to a degree. Because some products are not regularly available there were substitutes, and sometimes these were better. Even within the Denver-Metro area, stores were inconsistent. I worked in eight stores there alone, and I have seen it. The infrastructure to the organization becomes some of the focus rather than what got them to the big status in the first place, the guests. I worked places that had a constant stream of people visiting, for no other reason than it was a place to visit. This is great for the small place I worked at, and the national chain could never top that kind of business. At the same time, if the little guy doesn't have this niche for it's market, it can not compete.
Then of course there is convenience. With over 7,000 corporate stores alone, there are many out there in one market. I worked where there were three of them in the same parking lot. Granted, one of them took over a local chain's lease, and one was a kiosk inside a grocery store, there was three of them there. The one that took over a lease has closed, but it didn't do anything to effect the business to the other two stores. It's not just here, when you get off the L.I.R.R. at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, and head outside towards the entrance of Madison Square Garden, within three blocks from one another, there are two of them, I mean you can see the other one while you sit there. In Macy's Herald Square, again not more than half a block from one of them, there are three with in the giant department store. Are we that impatient, to need those 8 million calorie low fat coffee drinks? I could just keep going on and on and on about this, just know that three hours without Starbucks makes me happy.
