Rant 749

Wow, I may loathe Starbucks for killing off all the local (and even bigger Canada wide) coffee shops, and for making awful crap for too much money to them and none to the plantation workers..but...AWESOME! Congrats to that store.

I saw something similar in a little tea house, they had a board of their employees with all sorts of candid and silly shots that made me laugh, but not one of a sprogling. Maybe coffee and tea shops are losing popularity with breeders (the only kids I've even seen in them are very new babies that if they even make a peep, their mother takes them out of the shop.)

You've been lucky, Lady Cooper! Starbucks is usually so full of toadlers, that it's hard to walk in the door. But, we all know how Moo is. She couldn't give a crap about coffee, she just wants to be seen.

Well, I don't go into Starbuckses, but I guess maybe because the tea houses and coffe shops I go to are small, locally owned, and not "cool" enough to attract breeders to show off.

While Starfucks has predatory retail practices that make it hard for locally owned coffee houses to compete, I'd generally lay the fault of the closure of the local coffee shops on the backs of the consumers who, for some ungodly reason (maybe they enjoy the rotgut?), stop going to their local coffee shops. Sure, their Crappicino is good, if you enjoy the taste of scientific experiments poured out of a box and mixed with water.

The only reason that "Charbucks" (the nickname I gave to Starbucks becasue whenever I am dumb enough to get coffee there, it always tastes burnt) is so successful is because they have an excellent marketing department: "Buy our charred-ass coffee and be seen with our Charbucks cup and people will think you're cool!"
And sometimes the local coffee shop is not void of breeders. One I wen to for a long time was run by them. The coffee itself was the best tasting coffee ON EARTH. But the owners (a married couple (whome I was friends with for a short while before I wised up)) had their 6 year old girl and 4 year old boy run around screaming at the top of thier lungs raising unholy Hell annoying the other patrons including PNBs while out with their well-behaved children.
Everytime their little Bratleighs would misbehave, I would think "You are trying to run a successful business! Why are they in here? Don't you think their behavior is deterring your patrons?" But these kids would be in the shop sometime literally all day. The BNPs should of sent their asses to the sitters!
This particular coffee shop did sell coffee beans from the distributor from where they got their own beans from with the distribtor's address on it. So I can get that delicious coffee without having to deal with BNPs children's rowdy behavior.
I need to move to Chicago so I can go to "A Taste of Heaven!"

I think their coffee tastes burnt, too.
I heard that what Starbucks did to get established was to set up shop near a coffee shop and offer their drinks at lower prices. Not even that low. But for some reason 30 or 40 cents cheaper makes a big difference to some folks. Once the coffee shop went out of business, Starbucks raised their prices. Now they don't need to do that, because they are so popular.

I remember a few years ago in downtown Sacramento, someone made some stickers that said "Starbucks are assholes" and plastered them all over signs and telephone poles.