Why do I hate Starbucks?

1. Deliberately puts indie coffee shops out of business:
" buying the leases of independent shops, flat-out intimidation or passing out free samples outside the front door of independent competitors."
2. Resists unions and fairly-traded coffee
3. Most of all, their pretend community, which is no match for the real community that used to exist in old-time coffee shops.
I used to love to go to coffee shops and listen to people talk to each other. The same people would have been coming to them for years, sometimes decades. "How's your ma, Joe? Did she get out of the hospital?" "Hey, Mable, I heard your young 'un made the varsity team."

BY golly, looks like the independent coffee shops are taking back their own.

"As Starbucks continues to orchestrate its own demise, independent coffee shops are successfully finding ways to reclaim the culture that was stolen from them."

"A recent Slate article points out that in the David-versus-Goliath struggle between independent coffee shops and Starbucks, the indies look like they’re poised to win."

Among other reasons: earlier this year, Consumer Reports famously ranked the McDonald’s house brew ahead of Starbucks in a taste test, criticizing the latter for being “burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open.” It’s a fast-food model of rapid-fire consumerism that has obliterated the sort of community that used to characterize coffeehouse culture.

Patronize your local coffee shop!!


http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/76.php?id=347#

Do I surmise by your post that Mom & Pop coffee shops should be unionized? $25/hr for serving coffee, health insurance (for the time being), 401K, paid vacation!

Dirt

PS. Not that I'm a fan of Starbucks. I support my local hardware guy over the big guys!

I'm more concerned about this:
- CEOs of large U.S. companies last year made as much money from just one day on the job as average workers made over the entire year. These top executives averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, over 364 times the pay of the average American worker, a calculation based on data from an Associated Press survey of 386 Fortune 500 companies.

- average CEO pay in US rose 298% between 1990 and 2005.

- in 2001 the top 1% in US own 40% of the wealth, the bottom 80% own 8.8%

so... no, increasing the hourly pay of coffee shop workers -which btw I have been - and giving them the same benefits which we all would like to have - does not bother me.

It's fine to have an anti-union opinion, if that is yours, Dirt. This is America and we can all have an opinion. I have a different opinion.

My opinion is based on the fact that when children were working in factories and mills for pennies and hour and losing their fingers, and working 18 hours a day, it wasn't the mill-owners and the factory-owners who reformed these conditions. These guys fought every reform, tooth and nail, by fair means and foul.

It was labor rights people, worker-rights people who fought for and got child-protection laws. Who got the 8-hour day. And a minimum wage. So I am of the opinion that these are good things, and I support any activity in this tradition.

ellen

Well put and often forgotten by folks who weren't involved with the struggle to get decent work environments,and fair compensation for a days work.

Speaking of struggle for decency, I saw a wonderful one-person play last night, called Marx in Soho. It is the reading of a play written by Howard Zinn, the Peoples' historian, and it imagines what Marx would say if he came back today. It made me laugh and cry and left me feeling inspired, something unfortunately rare these days.

ellen

I am so glad to hear that i am not the only one in America that does not like the flavor of STAR BUCK COFFIE!!!!! I was beginning to think I was,had It once,hated it,went back home to my homemade brew !!!! My friends could not belive i did not like it!!!

Haven't set foot in a Starbucks since they forced the little coffee shop in Saratoga Springs NY out of business.

And now with reports that indicate the best product coming out of the place is the used cofee grounds they give away for compost, I guess I haven't missed much.

Grew up in a union family and was a union member and shop steward for 15 years. There was a lot of "union-envy" even back then. A lot of peope hated seeing others not living as miserably as themselves.

Without government regulations and a few remaining strong unions, we would be back to the days ellenr describes. Corporations don't pay a living wage or follow safe and common sense practices out of the kindness of their heart.

Wayne

Mom & Pop union coffee shops - I'm soooo confused?

Dirt

Ellen, I didn't know Howard Zinn was still alive. Thanks for the info on his play.

I've never drunk Starbucks coffee, but it sure does smell good when I go there to get coffee grounds, as we did this morning. Probably very few franchise operations are unionized at this point.

My parents were founding members of the Philadelphia Teachers' Union in the 1930's. My union, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) is pretty good. I've been a member for 29 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Dirt Pit:
Mom & Pop union coffee shops - I'm soooo confused?

Dirt

I think your confusion is only caused by by the person who keeps bringing up "Mom & Pop union coffee shops." No one else has mentioned that they thought they be unionized.

When I was still in the Adirondacks, we fought (successfuly so far,) to keep Walmart out of town for many of the same reasons. To surmise that we did it because we wanted the mom and pop shops in town to be unionized is beyond ludicrous, but that didn't stop some from suggesting it. Same red-herring here.

Wayne

The only time I have a Starbucks' mochachinno-frapalatta-hippy-dippy-half-decaf-latté, hold the whip cream is when I'm in Barnes & Noble, and I am Jonesing for a coffee while I'm getting my 'free-read' fix of books I can't afford to buy, which I do quite frequently. Consequently, my friends know that a $5 (birthday/Christmas) gift card to a B&N Starbucks is greatly appreciated, especially when my eyelids are drooping from all that reading, and I'm in dire immediate need an extra shot of espresso in that "Whatchmacallit Latté".

Otherewise, I'm a Dunkin Donuts-coffee gal. Besides, if I ask for a medium at Dunkin Donuts, the gal behind the counter doesn't condescend to me like some of the pompous, little snots behind a Starbucks' counter by correcting me with:
"Ohhhh, you mean Grandé."

I often wonder, too, if people bring their laptops to Starbucks because they don't have Internet connections at home...or if they go to Starbucks with their laptops because they don't have any coffee at home?

quote:

Originally posted by adirondackgardener:

quote:

Originally posted by Dirt Pit:
Mom & Pop union coffee shops - I'm soooo confused?

Dirt

I think your confusion is only caused by by the person who keeps bringing up "Mom & Pop union coffee shops." No one else has mentioned that they thought they be unionized.

When I was still in the Adirondacks, we fought (successfuly so far,) to keep Walmart out of town for many of the same reasons. To surmise that we did it because we wanted the mom and pop shops in town to be unionized is beyond ludicrous, but that didn't stop some from suggesting it. Same red-herring here.

Wayne

OK, think I understand now. As long as Mom & Pop stay Mom & Pop, don't become too successful (or that dirty word) all is well.

Thanks,
Dirt

BTW I used to live in Round Lake, NY. Loved it. I was the Corps Captain for Malta Ambulance Corps for a couple years. Used to go fishing in Kaydeross Creek and Lake Lonely. Shrimp Mangionne at Mangionne's on Saratoga Lake. Doesn't get any better.

I don't like the way they roast their coffee--it does taste burnt. In order for me to get it down the hatch, it has to be in a mocha (no additional calories ). They have decent hot chocolate too. The reason I go there as much as I do is because I'm taking art classes at a community college, and it is right by the art building, and sometimes a coworker will give Hubby a Starbucks gift card for Christmas, and he will give it to me.

Currently, the city I live in, which has 70-some thousand people (where the heck do we put 'em all?) has at least a half a dozen that I can think of, and 4 of them are just a few blocks apart from each other. A smallish local chain decided to get out of the coffeehouse business and just concentrate on selling coffee--it had turned into a small chain, but it wasn't too far from mom & pop. I used to walk to one of those coffee houses (it's now one of the Starbucks); now there is no coffeehouse in close walking distance from my home that isn't a starbucks, unless you count 7-11, Weinerscnitzel, McDonalds, or the supermarkets. There are a couple of places I could maybe walk to in about a half hour, but I haven't worked my way back up to that level of fitness yet.

I have heard that Starbucks offers benefits like health insurance to part time employees--good to know in case I ever needed to get insurance and didn't mind being a barrista.

--J--

never ever been to a starbucks, but tim hortons in canada had pretty good coffee but was like a fast food drive through