How sad are you that Starbucks is closing scores of stores around the country? Me, not so much.
Don't misunderstand: I'm one of those oddballs who doesn't love Starbucks, but who doesn't hate it either. Their coffee tastes burned to me, but I go there maybe once or twice a month when I'm out and really, really want a cup of coffee. I buy the plain coffee, then jack it up with half and half and Sweet 'n Low. I get out of there for a couple of bucks, and I'm happy. I'm glad Starbucks is there, and I don't really care about Starbucks being a chain store; it was Starbucks, pretty much, that mainstreamed a taste for quality coffee. You may be a coffee snob (I certainly am) who avoids Starbucks on principle, but you should at least admit that it's a lot easier to get the kind of coffee we coffee snobs like because Starbucks exists.
And, as I've blogged here before, people in my old Brooklyn neighborhood really warmed up to Starbucks when it came to our streets, for a simple reason: they gave moms with strollers a place to go to have coffee and talk. Unlike the indie coffee shop down the street, which was run by a jerk who didn't want strollers in his store. He went out of business, too. Nuts to him, say I.
Anyway, I think there are so many jitters about the Starbucks closings because Starbucks is one of those commercial brands that carries a certain cultural cachet with it. Hear me out on this. When I was a kid growing up in a small town, all of us kids knew somehow that our town was, at some level, deficient because we didn't have a McDonalds, or any other fast food joint, in town. Walker Percy writes of the effect celebrity has of "validating" places. That is, if a movie star shows up in your town, you somehow feel affirmed, in terms of social psychology. Once when I was a kid, Ralph Waite, who played Pa Walton, was passing through and stopped at a deli for lunch. I thought it was so cool -- imagine that, a real TV star, stopping here to eat! When I was about six, we were eating ice cream in the car at the C & E Drive-In just north of town, and there in the car next to us eating a hamburger was Joe Morlon, a reporter for the CBS affiliate in Baton Rouge. Joe Morlon, right there at our drive-in! Wow. So I guess we weren't entirely obscure and pointless.
I know it sounds silly, because it is silly, but I think that sort of thing is going on with the Starbucks closings. It makes perfect sense during a time of economic hardship that people won't have four dollars to spend on a cup of coffee. Businesses that depend on selling four dollar cups of coffee are likely to suffer, and close -- especially if they are located in parts of town where there are fewer people likely to have four dollars to drop on a cup of coffee. But even in good economic times, being able to spend four dollars on a cup of coffee was kind of a status symbol. So having Starbucks open up in your neighborhood meant that your part of town was upwardly mobile. You were, to use Percian language, "validated" by the presence of a high-end coffee retailer.
For Starbucks to pull out of your neighborhood, then, is a sign that your part of town is slipping. Not good -- even if you think people who spend all that money for burnt coffee are ridiculous. Starbucks is a status marker -- but in a consumer economy, that status has a tangible effect on social psychology.
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Lately when I've gone into Starbucks, sometimes there is no coffee on tap, they are in the middle of brewing it, and I have to wait 5 minutes. No big deal (and they give it to me free), but they ought to improve their customer service. This has happened much more often in the last few months, than in previous years.
- It's because the focus right now (with Howard at the helm) is on quality. Ever since the day the stores shut down, the coffee is rebrewed every 30 minutes (counting the brewing time.) So, as I figure it, you have a one in six shot of being there when it is being brewed each time you go... But look on the bright side... the coffee is fresh, and you get one out of six of them free! :)
I won't go to Starbucks, period - because they charge for refills. I'll go to the competitor down the street who doesn't.
I agree with those who've already said they don't see the Starbucks closings as very much of a big deal, since they still have thousands of very profitable stores, although it will be a loss to the communities they served, some of which may not have had much retail to begin with.
Both Starbucks and Washington, D.C., are frequent topics in these pages. I don't often comment, but as a District native who never left the city (and speaking for a second native who also never left): we love to see Starbucks open here and stay in business here. (Their only District store to close is 21st and L NW; there are others very nearby, and my guess is that the West End isn't quite as busy as the chain had hoped.) In every case we can think of, Starbucks is an improvement over what was there previously, and always generates more foot traffic than the business it replaced.
I get tired of reading about $4 coffee (as well as cliched references to McMansions and SUVs, as if everyone owned them). I no longer drink coffee, and I didn't like Starbucks' blends when I did, but I don't pay $4 now, and I didn't then, either. I order a small hot tea, in those words, $1.60 including District tax. Usually I take the tea with me to drink on my walk. Occasionally I'll also take home baked goods. Most of those in line with me ( later in the day; I'm not there mornings) place similar orders: hot coffee, iced tea, iced coffee, bottled fruit juices.
No independent shop here (and we don't have too many) appeals to me: none are on my regular routes or would make me want to go out of my way; they tend to be too loud (although most Starbucks are on the loud side, too), not clean enough, and visually unappealing to me. I don't encounter the supercilious staff mentioned by some; most of the staff at the stores I go to are adults, mostly minority groups and non-native English speakers, and in the last few years, a handful of men who I'm guessing were downsized from managerial jobs.
I encourage Starbucks to keep opening in the District, expand their tea selection, and extend their closing times.
I agree that the Starbucks coffee beans are over-roasted. This makes it very hard to get a good cup of regular coffee at Starbucks, unless the circumstances are exactly right (if the coffee has just been made, if it is a light roast, etc). I live in the District of Columbia, too, and avoid Starbucks whenever I can because there are several places that have better coffee.
Stefanie,
Refills at Starbuck's are free, if you have a registered Starbuck's card. The card also entitles you to free wifi connectivity if you bring your laptop along. And the advantage of the cards is: no tipping. (Just kidding, I always dig in for a tip from my pocket change...but the card makes it easier to "forget" the gratuity.)
For me, the appeal of Starbucks is that it's the corner pub where you don't have to drink booze. And thought of that way, the prices are not exorbitant. But like Rod, I drink just the coffee (equates with beer on tap, I suppose), not all the Barista concoctions.
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