Maybe I’m the only one that finds Starbucks amazing. You walk into a Starbucks in Portland, Ashland, or Seattle, and you are no longer in that town, you are in Starbucks. It’s like every Starbucks storefront is a dimensional portal.
In some ways that eery similarity is a symptom of the most remarkable thing (to me) about Starbucks. They’re so consistent. Apart from those few Starbucks (Beaverton Town Square comes to mind) that smell objectionable (Sister Sledge, who has friends with babies, says it smells like baby poop, and I am inclined to agree.), every Starbucks is the same. Same menu of drinks, same specials, different pastries from day to day but all chosen from the same set. Hell, if I ever spend as much time in a different Starbucks as I do on the Macadam one, I’ll probably discover the same struggling indie rock guitarists and actresses work at each. It’s really a marvelous business model. Maybe for other things as well, but especially for coffee - back when there were Mom-n-pop coffee shops, I had bad mochas and so forth a lot - it was hard to depend on them, which is anything but relaxing.
Which brings me to my other point. A lot of people call Starbucks “the Microsoft of the coffee world” and such nonsense (perhaps it’s a geographical argument?). It’s simply not. Starbucks produces good product, consistent product, a pleasant atmosphere, and has (in my experience) marvelous customer service (“Oh, I’m so sorry the Chocolate Orange bits and the brownie bits got mixed together. Would you like a free frappuccino of a different flavor and three infinite-time infinite-price free drink coupons?”). They aren’t monopolistic through dirty business practice, they aren’t foisting a bad product on the public, they aren’t trying to exploit [Hillsboro told Wal-Mart to go fish yesterday! No Wal-Mart in Washington Co.!|text|low income areas]. They are quasi-monopolistic because they do what they do so well. So they can have my $40/month, and welcome.
Comments
Yay for Starbucks
Starbucks does a lot of things I really like. I stopped drinking coffee a few years ago, but I still go there with friends for the atmosphere and the fact that you can completely monopolize a table (even a table with comfy chairs) for six hours without buying more than one cup of anything and they’ll never even so much as hint that you should move on.
Also there’s the whole low-cost wi-fi access factor (extremely low cost if you don’t mind being a little evil), the fact that they’re often attached to book stores I enjoy, the fact that there are often entertaining local musicians performing there, and the fact that my favorite local Starbucks (Tanasbourne) is now open 24 hours.
Starbucks has what McDonalds wants. A comforting sameness at every store, a hipness factor, and just enough local influence at each location to engender the warm fuzzy feeling that the Starbucks you go to isn’t just any Starbucks, it’s your Starbucks. And also refreshing beverages and foodstuffs that don’t taste like shit.
Re: Yay for Starbucks
Yeah! I was going to mention the fast food comparison; other stores try for that comforting sameness, but it just isn’t there. And it’s so low-level; I mean, in Ashland, there’s a fireplace and a mural—but the colors, lighting, furniture, still tell your brain that you’re in Starbucks.
Now if they could just clear the smell out of the few weird ones…
A Respectful Dissent
I’m sorry, but I really must disagree. Certainly, all Starbucks feel the same inside, but I find this sameness stultifying, not comforting. They’re a boring, whitebread alternative to real coffeeshops. Calling them the “Microsoft of the coffee world” is of course ridiculous; there’s no analogy there. They’re the McDonald’s of the coffee world; bland, generic, and successful through their consistent and non-threatening nature. They are, naturally, less disgusting than McDonald’s because standardized, assembly-line methods of brewing coffee are less disgusting than standardized, assembly-line methods of deep fat-frying.
Their silly promotional gift items bother me. They make me feel like I’m in a Hallmark store. I also get the feeling that they want me to think that their design is avant-garde instead of avant-garde 10 years ago.
And I think their coffee tastes like butt. It’s burnt. And pricey. Unfortunately, much like fast food has done to the eating habits of many lower- and even middle-class Americans, Starbucks may redefine what quality means in coffee.
So that’s why I don’t like Starbucks—but you go right ahead.
Re: A Respectful Dissent
It’s better than “mix all the shit we made yesterday together, warm it up and call it a mocha” Arabica, but that’s just me :)
I am with you on the burnt-tasting, but only for normal coffee—I never notice it with the espresso drinks.
I did think of the fast food analogy, but here’s the thing - using BK because I never go to McDonald’s if I can help it - BKs are NOT so consistent. Some of them are clean and well-kempt, some of them are full of Cleveland-style lazy bums. And the decor varies hugely (especially in McDonald’s, actually. And here we have the Hollywood McDonald’s! In…Chicago…)
Bottom line is, I don’t think they make the world’s best coffee. But I don’t go there for the coffee. I go for the caramel floofy drinks and a nice place to sit.