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600 starFUCKS To Close!
The article is a bit silly. I just dream of a world without starFUCKS.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...3274600.column
chicagotribune.com
History could have helped Starbucks foresee revolt
John Kass
July 17, 2008
Starbucks has spent millions marketing its outrageously expensive and elitist coffee beverages—even pushing those foolish lemon bars on innocent people—and now the company is closing 600 stores.
But all the high priests of the Church of Coffee had to do to prevent the catastrophe was to spend about $3.50 for a used American history book.
There, among the stirring tales of the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Intolerable Acts and the murder of the heroic and much under-appreciated Alexander Hamilton, they would have found the answer to their woes.
Americans started drinking coffee in the first place because tea was so dang expensive, with the English controlling the market and slapping taxes on it, so that a bunch of crazy hooligans from Boston dressed up in war paint and dumped a whole boatload in anger.
Coffee at the time was boiled, then percolated, finally dripped. Cowboys drank it. Rugged explorers pursuing our manifest destiny drank it.
President Theodore Roosevelt drank a gallon of coffee every day before he'd go out to shoot a bunch of creatures and put their heads on his wall. And when he'd sit down with his gallon of coffee, no one would dare tell Roosevelt that he'd just ordered a "venti." He might just put their heads on his wall.
I have a recurring nightmare in which Roosevelt confronts me on Michigan Avenue while I'm holding my favorite, a large mocha Frappuccino. He stares at it, then begins to mock me, louder and louder. My face turns beet red from the shame, and I begin to run on my stumpy bowlegs, with Roosevelt yelling, "Bully! Bully!"
A few years ago, Americans were tricked by marketers into becoming zealots of the Church of Coffee and spending $5 and up for coffee products. But now gas is almost $5. So take your choice: Drive to work or sip your venti.
Americans are in revolt, not by dumping Starbucks baristas into the harbors, but by doing something much more subversive:
Going to Dunkin' Donuts, where they can get a cup of coffee and two doughnuts (make mine jelly) for around $3 and change.
We called Dunkin' Donuts to find out why the company is booming, but executives there didn't have the decency to discuss this phenomenon on the phone. Instead, they sent out a bland corporate statement, which tells me they've got some former Starbucks suits there.
"Our customers . . . are passionate about our coffee and baked goods, because they can get a consistently superior product, served fast, at an affordable price," said the statement from the public relations guy, who said Dunkin' is adding 500 stores.
Later, I walked around Michigan Avenue, confronting people, asking them: If I gave them $5 for breakfast and they had a choice between Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, which would they choose?
"Dunkin', " said a woman.
Why?
"Because I get my fix, and I'm full," she said.
That's a lot snappier than the corporate bland-speak from the PR guy. Get your fix, get your fill. All I ask in return is a lifetime supply of Munchkins.
"Pardon me?" asked Mr. Patel, the manager of the Dunkin' Donuts in Countryside.
I explained, like a pilgrim seeking wisdom, that I had journeyed to his store to ask the eternal question. Why is Dunkin' Donuts kicking Starbucks' behind?
"Good coffee, and our doughnuts are nice," said a woman behind the counter. Mr. Patel didn't like that she spoke up.
"I cannot say," Mr. Patel said. "We're not allowed to discuss it. I know the reason. So do you. But it would be better that you speak to the owner. I'm not the owner."
One customer, an overly caffeinated guy who called himself Ziggy—a house painter who claimed he'd been a professor in Europe who'd been blackballed for his Maoist views—insisted that expensive coffee wasn't the problem.
"America is spending too much on bottled water! How many bottles of $1.50 water to the gallon? Do the math! Do the math!" Ziggy insisted, and I pretended to figure it, without knowing the ounces of the hypothetical bottles, nodding and smiling, as would anyone confronted by a madman.
I was saved by a gracious lady, Rosemary O'Brien of La Grange. She's no Starbucksista.
"That other stuff is expensive," she said. "Here, you can have a doughnut. Or two and the paper and coffee—and it won't cost you $5. And that's important, especially today, with things being so expensive."
What about being associated with Starbucks? Isn't there value in having the Starbucks cup in your hand as you proclaim your sensitivity to the environment while driving one of those new green mini-Hummers?
"Oh, so you can walk around with a Starbucks cup? You'll pay extra money for that? How nice. No thanks," Mrs. O'Brien said.
If Barack Obama had any sense, he'd hire Mrs. O'Brien to be the next secretary of the Treasury. It's about time someone in Washington knows the value of a dollar.
Or, of a cup of coffee.
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Originally Posted by Morning Glory
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