Good luck in South Korea.
Posted on 01/31/2008 2:57:56 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
“Starbucks is the only company in the world that make you order using words from three different languages, all of which mean ‘big’”
sounds great, will do! judith anne, do you need me to get you any shoes from DSW while i am out at lunch today?
To be fair, that's a specialty coffee. You can still get a Venti (large) regular coffee for under $2. Still, even that ain't cheap.
The other thing Panera has going for it is free WiFi.
Their mini-quiches are better than most "breakfast sandwiches" too.
Thank you very much for the good morning chuckle. I am going to forward this to my husband, who should get a good laugh out of this. I have to admit - I like Starbucks - when I was pregnant: I always ordered the Venti-Caramel Macchiato, with Whipped Cream and Caramel Sauce drizzled on top, yummy!!!!!!/Just Asking - seoul62.......
I’d better shop for myself. I’m hard to fit. :D
As far as the breakfast quiches, I’m allergic to the eggs, but a lot of people say they are just addicting...esp the cheddar bacon one. Our Panera gives them out free when the time expires on selling them in peak freshness, something like an hour after they’re baked. So, they never sit for very long, aren’t allowed to be stale.
I got a Starbudk’s card for Christmas, so I drove through this morning for a cup of coffee. I ordered a large black coffee. The girl on the other end then said “Do you want cream or sugar?”
I just stared at the big plastic menu in confusion...
but three people stand there and watch the microwave.
they may also have found their saturation point....and there’s just one too many.
Maybe if they could make a customer’s coffee order in less than 20 minutes, they’d be on to something
Carolyn
Good luck in South Korea.
I think it’s quite amusing that you posted exactly what I was going to regarding 2 Starbucks in close proximity, but I can go one better: We have the Safeway/freestanding Starbucks near my workplace, and downtown there is another pair that are 1/4 block apart across the street from each other.
That said, Starbucks coffee is not roasted, it’s charred, then pulverized, then brewed, then sold to folks with far more money than brains.
Coffee at Starbucks, $4+. Coffee at any local brewer, $2.
The local stuff is palatable.
Let me augment your comment to, “The foo-foo yuppie overpriced coffee fad is starting to fade.”
All of our local gas stations have excellent coffee bars with Green Mountain fresh ground coffee. I can bring my own travel mug of any size and choose whichever blend I want, mixed exactly the way I want, for 99 cents.
In my small college town, there is an independent coffee shop downtown. They roast and grind their own beans in-house. A 20 ounce cup is $2. A 16 ounce cup is $1.59. That coffee shop has a line at the counter all day long. They sell scones and muffins, but prepare no food. Starbuck’s hasn’t opened up here because they can’t compete.
In Portsmouth, NH, a yuppie/hippie/tourist town, in the main city square, there is a Starbucks and there is an independent shop. The independent shop does triple the Starbucks business. I think the cause is partly price and partly the product.
Starbuck’s was first in the real coffee market. That market has matured and is now saturated in most urban areas. Now, you can get 8 kinds of coffee at gas stations or Krispy Kreme, and, you don’t have to wait for some guy with facial piercings and neck tattoos to make a sandwich for the liberal yuppie scum in front of you.
Starbucks probably dropped the sandwiches because they verified the earlier criticisms that there was much less profit margin in them than the coffee drinks.
When they earlier announced the move into sandwiches, analysts criticized them for increasing their revenues with a much lower margin business. It took awhile to get it in to their heads.
When I go into a Dunkin Donuts and see men in workboots in front of me, I sometimes just walk out because you know they are about to order sandwiches for their entire crew. Just like young women with too much makeup (you know they are about to order some kind of fancy latte with 15 separate instructions), and parents with young children (you know they are going to agonize over the selection of a dozen donuts), men in workboots are a sign that you are in for a long, long wait.
Used to be a time when 99% of Dunkin Donuts customers just ordered coffee and a donut and you were in and out of there in a flash. I miss those simple days.
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