The New York Times has a story about the Starbucks-owned coffeehouse in Seattle, Roy Street Coffee and Tea, that I wrote about earlier. I give Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, full credit for trying to turn his enormous company around. Trying local, and local-feeling, coffeehouses without using the Starbucks name is OK with me if it produces actual third places that serve good coffee.
I was surprised by one detail in the Times story that they do not comment on: Roy Street Coffee and Tea serves microbrew beer. I have never heard of a Starbucks serving alcohol before. Has anyone else run across this development elsewhere?
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3 comments:
The irony is that people begin to hate companies and people as soon as they become too popular/large. Starbucks is no exception. Seems like Roy realizes that fact.
I don't think it is simply size and popularity. Starbucks was huge and still hip. It was when they started declining against their own standards - the baristas didn't really know much about coffee, they introduced too many sweet drinks, too many stores were driven by the drive-through window, too few made any real effort to be third places, the stores were too cluttered with non-coffee merchandise - that people began to get disenchanted.
Maybe that's what happens when a company gets to big for real quality control?
I buy coffee in bulk from Walmart but wish Starbucks well.
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