Posted on 05/01/2016 6:49:55 AM PDT by grundle
Starbucks is opening its first cafe in Ferguson, Missouri. It is contracting with local and minority firms. It is teaming up with a local non-profit.
Starbucks certainly has the best of intentions.
What the actual results will be will up to the people who live in the community.
Will they treat this Starbucks the same way that people in most neighborhoods treat their local Starbucks?
Or, will they smash the windows, loot it, and burn it down?
Only time will tell.
Poor people buy a lot of overpriced things ... but you're probably right about the latte.
Yes, friends and family have been known to us gift certificates for Christmas and we will use them, but that is the only time we are seen in a Starbucks.
It is a pretentious fad, IMHO.
Gentrification?
Indeed. Only a matter of time.
According to some people in my Weight Watchers meeting, Starbucks pastries are good. My teenagers go there sometimes, too.
Here is my idea. Find a local minority business person and let them operate the store Starbucks can waive the franchise fee and sell the operater products at wholesale cost. Hope it works out in Ferguson but it’s doubtful. T
I don’t know. Panera doesn’t come up much. However, I regularly hear raves about pastry at Starbucks. Starbucks gift cards are a safe gift when you don’t know much about a person’s tastes, because there are lots of shops, and most people like either coffee, coffee-flavored shake-type things, or pastries.
Ya. And the only reason we might be seen in a Starbucks. We certainly wouldn’t buy a coffee from them with our own money.
I’m cheap: I just drink coffee at home.
Dunkin Donuts coffee is pretty good and better prices. Makes a good gift card too
The people don’t have a pot to pee in yet Starbucks is there to sell $4 cups of bad coffee??
In any other world, this would be called exploitation. In liberal-land, this is called giving them “hope”
Good point. The one near us has a Baskin Robbins in it, too.
And you are wiser and richer for it, I bet.
Well in that case - hell yeah! Because 'best of intentions' out trumps reality and best of intentions is supposed to allow all kinds of crap. Best of intentions also infers unassailabilty. How about screw you and your best of intentions?
Then there is the prevalence of drugs in the poorer communities. Drugs tend to consume all expendable income.
Then there is the prevalence of drugs in the poorer communities. Drugs tend to consume all expendable income.
And don’t be shocked if your store is looted during the next riot.
No way they could even memorize all the different coffee combinations and make them. And how slow they all move out of sheer defiance. It would take 4 hours to get a coffee out the door.
Yes, I completely understand. Starbucks is using the same idiotic philosophy that they used in asking people to have racial discussions with their ‘baristas.’ What could possibly go wrong?
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