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McDonald’s wants to be a bigger player in the global coffee business. The world’s biggest hamburger chain on Thursday highlighted beverages as one of its key growth opportunities at a day-long presentation for investors. … The push comes as Starbucks Corp. is enjoying strong sales growth even in the choppy economy. In the latest quarter, the Seattle-based chain said global sales rose 7 percent at locations open at least a year. At McDonald’s, the figure edged up 0.9 percent. …

tarbucks has become the latest foreign firm to be roasted by China's state-run media, with a series of accusations that the world's largest coffee shop chain is overcharging Chinese consumers. State broadcaster CCTV aired a seven-minute report criticising the firm's pricing in China, arguing that a tall latte in Beijing is more expensive than in London, Chicago and Mumbai. The report on Sunday gave the price of a Beijing latte as 27 yuan ($4.42), compared with 24.25 yuan ($3.97) in London, 19.98 yuan ($3.26) in Chicago and 14.6 yuan ($2.39) in Mumbai.

Java, Guns and Rock’n Roll…….with Ted Nugent Filed under Rock N Roll, VIP Coffee Interview If you listen to Rock and Roll music or have listened in the past oh, four decades, then you know the name Ted Nugent. Aside from leaving a huge mark in the rock world with Wango Tango, Snakeskin Cowboys, Cat Scratch Fever, and Stranglehold (to name a scant few, a few over 30 million sold that is.), Ted is an unapologetic and highly opinionated force in the media. No matter what the Nuge does these days it comes with controversy, from his pro hunting and...

It's really unbelievable what happened to Stella Liebeck. You just have to watch to see how the media turned on this little old lady who lived in Albuquerque. Obviously a villain, right? And at 5:00, prepare to see what the coffee actually did to her. It's not pretty. Well ... nothing in her situation was.

Here’s his letter about it to the company. It’s just a request, not a ban. If he made it a ban, then employees would have to enforce it. And he’s quite candid about his misgivings over putting an unarmed worker in the position of telling someone who’s packing that they’re unwelcome. Lots of grumbling about this on Twitter this morning, which surprised me. Surely there can’t be that much overlap between fans of open carry and fans of pumpkin spice lattes. Turns out I had missed the news about “Starbucks Appreciation Day” by gun owners last month, though. This isn’t...

(Reuters photo- with article) While many U.S. restaurant chains and retailers do not allow firearms on their properties, Starbucks' policy had been to default to local gun laws, including "open carry" regulations in many U.S. states that allow people to bring guns into stores. In August, this led gun-rights advocates to hold a national "Starbucks Appreciation Day" to thank the firm for its stance, pulling the company deeper into the fierce political fight. Locations for Starbucks Appreciation Day events included Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were shot dead in an elementary school in December. Starbucks closed that...

If you’re already holding your first coffee of the morning, you might want to put it down, because drinking four cups a day could raise your risk of dying young, researchers warn—but only if you’re under 55. They found that consuming 28 cups of coffee a week increases the chances of premature death in younger people by half. … The risk of death from all causes rose by 56 percent for men and women younger than 55 who drank more than 28 cups of coffee a week, said a report in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. … Recent research has...

Starbucks seems an unlikely dueling ground in the national debate over guns, but the ubiquitous coffee chain Friday will once again find itself squarely in the cross hairs in the battle between gun control and gun rights advocates. More than 2,000 gun rights activists plan to visit their local Starbucks with their sidearms for a national “Starbucks Appreciation Day.”

..."He asked the cashier, how many coffees do you sell in a day?” The store manager Joanne Averion said. Then he asked the cashier to ring him up 500 large coffees. "The cashier asked if he was going to drink all that coffee, or if he is going to give it to someone?" Averion recalled. "He said, 'You have to give these coffees to the next 500 customers,’" Averion also said.

RIVER EDGE — A Florida man filed a lawsuit today claiming he suffered serious burns from a spilled cup of hot coffee while dining at a McDonald's restaurant in Bergen County, according to a report on NorthJersey.com. The 54-year-old plaintiff is seeking an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages, the report said.

<p>The Brooklyn EMT who callously refused to help a dying pregnant woman because she was on her coffee break saw her official misconduct charge dropped today after EMS chief Abdo Nahmod — who initially supported the case against her — flip-flopped, leaving frustrated Brooklyn prosecutors no choice but to dismiss the case.</p>

Not many players walk away from football as abruptly as Glen Coffee did. The former Alabama star running back played a season with the 49ers and even started two games. Then the former third-round pick simply told the team he was done with football during training camp before what would have been his second season, in 2010. Most football players will stay in the NFL until they're told they can no longer come back, but Coffee admitted he just didn't like football anymore. And it turns out, he had bigger goals. AL.com reported Coffee enlisted in the U.S. Army in...

Older adults who drank coffee -- caffeinated or decaffeinated -- had a lower risk of death overall than others who did not drink coffee, according a study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP. Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, although the association was not seen for cancer. These results from a large study of older adults were observed after adjustment for the effects of other risk factors on mortality, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. Researchers...

Enlarge image i Don't sit down here and have a smoke with your coffee, Starbucks says. Mark Memmott/NPR Don't sit down here and have a smoke with your coffee, Starbucks says.Mark Memmott/NPR Starbucks is moving its smoking ban outdoors.Starting Saturday, according to signs posted in its more than 7,000 shops across the U.S. and Canada, "the no-smoking policy ... will include outdoor areas.""Smoking will be restricted within 25 feet of the store and within outdoor seating areas," the notices read.AdWeek says that "since smoking bans have swept the nation in the last decade, it's doubtful there will be a...

The coffee shop, in the famous Bank of China Tower, has been using the water from a tap in a lavatory to make beverages since its opening in October 2011. Images from local newspaper Apple Daily showed the tap with a sign that said "Starbucks only" a few feet away from a urinal in the dingy washroom, which the paper said was in the building's car park. "There is no direct water supply to that particular store, that's why we need to obtain the drinking water from the nearest source in the building," Starbucks spokeswoman Wendy Pang said. "The issue...

Too much coffee can lead to weight gain and other health problems, even if drinkers stick to decaffeinated, according to research. Experts warned that drinking five or more cups a day increased the amount of fat stored in the abdomen. It was revealed that even a “moderate intake” of coffee in the average day could also lead to problems such as increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. Repeated studies in the past have shown that coffee can have benefits for regular drinkers, including lowing the chances of a stroke and certain forms of cancer. …

A respected pro-family organization announced a boycott of Starbucks coffee. The group, which supports legal protection for traditional marriage, launched the "Dump Starbucks" campaign after a national board meeting in which the Seattle-based coffee company mentioned support for same-sex marriage as a core value of the company. Some Christians are wondering whether we ought to join in the boycott. I say no. It's not that I'm saying a boycott in and of itself is always evil or wrong. It's just that, in this case (and in many like it) a boycott exposes us to all of our worst tendencies. Christians...

SEATTLE, Washington, March 26, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the annual Starbucks shareholder's meeting in Seattle last week, company CEO Howard Shultz told a shareholder that he should buy stocks in other coffee businesses if he didn't like Starbucks’ endorsement of same-sex "marriage." Shareholder Tom Strobhar had pointed to what he argued was a significant drop in sales following a boycott launched by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) protesting Starbucks’ support of homosexual "marriage" in Washington state. "In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings, shall we say politely, were a bit disappointing,"...

At Starbucks’ annual meeting in Seattle on Wednesday a shareholder complained to the chief executive, Howard Schultz, that the company had lost customers because of its support for gay marriage... “In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings, shall we say politely, were a bit disappointing,” said the shareholder, Tom Strobhar, whom the Huffington Post identifies at the founder of the anti-gay marriage Corporate Morality Action Center. Was Schultz taken aback? Not in the least. He responded, “Not every decision is an economic decision. Despite the fact that you recite statistics that are...