4 posts tagged “starbuck's”

Brand Autopsy has a series of six posts based on Starbie CEO Howard Schultz' memo on the chain losing its soul. The Green Mermaid is not and has not been a coffee company for a long time. They are about frou-frou hot milkshakes, not coffee. Their espresso is so covered up by all the prissy stuff, you would not know if the grind underneath it was trash or rotgut beans coming out of Vietnam or Brazil. The articles are correct about one thing, since the chain went automated, there are no real baristas there, only "fry cooks."
  

An article on Starbuck's in the New York Times addressing WiFi differences between places like Starbuck's and McDonald's that charge you to access the web ($6/hr and $2.95/2-hours) and other places like Panera (free) and the business implications are interesting. Personally, there are far better places for coffee than Starbuck's and most, if not close to all, independent coffeehouses offer web access for free. The question the NYTimes asks is, essentially, how does that running meter affect your stay? Do you feel like you need to hurry along or, like at Panera, do you feel more welcome to be on the web? Business wise, Panera probably gets more out of the lingers than does Starbuck's. And Panera, according to author Randall Stross, wants you to hang in because that amps up the probability that you will order something else as you see or smell it passing by. A recently opened coffeehouse about a mile and a half from here regularly has 80%+ of the customers on the web at any time. Seems to be serving as an alternative office space and out library form busy students.  

Buzzfeed points us to an article in the Seattle Times about selling sexiness at drive-thru coffee places to compete with Starbuck's. Guess that means some girlfriends and wives may not like that coffee stop their other halves make on the way to work. Of course, this would mean there is an opportunity for male hotbods working shirtless in some for the distaff side to ogle at on their forays through the drive thru. 

Found this gem at Shake Well before Use.

Starbucks_inhaler-thumb

It is a gag, isn't it?