Posted on 07/24/2008 9:09:55 AM PDT by rhema
We have been bracing for the list of closings, and it was finally revealed: 27 Starbucks outlets will be shuttered in Minnesota, leaving only 45,234. Hasta barista, baby.
The effect on the Twin Cities will be light -- the average citizen will still be within six minutes of a $4 cup of coffee at all times. Productivity will not suffer as people slump over at their desks from lack of jitter-juice. The people you have to pity -- aside from the employees, who probably can't fill a bathtub now without thinking "room for cream?" and won't soon find another job requiring that question -- are the folks in the small towns who will lose a piece of the outside world.
A Strib story last week by Emma Carew told the plight of Albert Lea teens mourning the loss of their coffee shop.
And you can understand why: Starbucks was like an embassy of a country where people sat around and read foreign newspapers, like the Wall Street Journal, and discussed things. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Maybe it's the unpretentious Twin Cities suburb where I live, but I've always found Starbucks staff and patrons (and those at Dunn Brothers, which I frequent more than Starbucks) to be hail-fellow-well-met kind of people.
There’s three within walking distance of me: one in Target, one adjacent to the library, and one at an open-air mall.
There’s two in a hotel down in San Juan, Puerto Rico when I visited last year, the El San Juan.
It’s insane
Starbucks is like undiagnosed cancer, it just keeps spreading.
But I can’t make my own caffe latte! I wish I could. I’d have one every day.
I hardly buy Starbucks myself too. Here in Houston there will still be a lot of them besides the fact that they have stands and sell it at Krogers, Randalls, and all the shopping centers.
I go to McDonalds - better coffee cheaper.
I keep hearing this type of story from anti-Starbucks people, and I have to ask- so what? So what if the guy has some piercings and tattoos and voted for Al Gore? Did he get you your order quickly and courteously?
I went to Starbucks the other day and the girl making the coffee had pink hair. But she prepared my order quickly and correctly and asked me whether I wanted a little space at the top of the cup for cream. She could have had a head of snakes, for all I cared.
It’s Bush’s fault. Also global warming, or is it global cooling this month?
Making someone such as Lileks a general reporter is like making a sixty homerun a year slugger bunt every time he’s up.
Indeed - I could not agree more with you.
Jack
Same here. If you're paying $4 then you're getting an espresso drink that requires more labor and upkeep for the machine.
Being in a rural area, I associate Starbucks with a citified treat. I don't like hearing about any business faltering.
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