[JAMES LILEKS] Making do with fewer Starbucks

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | July 19, 2008 | JAMES LILEKS

[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. . . .

[rhema]

Just as pathetic as the smug liberal in a fetal position around his Starbucks mug is the malcontent on the outside who hates the place, never goes in, obsesses over its customers, and revels in its failings. I don't get why some people care so much about businesses they "don't care about."

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.

[wastedyears]

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.

[rdb3]

It's global warming's fault!

[Marie2]

But I can’t make my own caffe latte! I wish I could. I’d have one every day.

[bradactor]

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.

[macamadamia]

hail-fellow-well-met kind of people

Same here. I like trying out any new coffee shop I come across...comparing brews, beans, etc. So far, putting aside the quality of coffee, they've all been, Starbucks included, friendly.

[MaineConservative]

Last Starbuck I was in - the server had pierce chin, nose and tatoos (and was dirty looking). Of course, the guy had a Gore 2000 bumper sticker of his Toyota truck.

I go to McDonalds - better coffee cheaper.

[Citizen Blade]

Last Starbuck I was in - the server had pierce chin, nose and tatoos (and was dirty looking). Of course, the guy had a Gore 2000 bumper sticker of his Toyota truck.

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.

[rhema]

The world would be rather dull if everyone looked like me, methinks. I've been in any number of businesses where well-scrubbed employees considered it an insufferable imposition to have to wait on me.

[hdstmf]

It’s Bush’s fault. Also global warming, or is it global cooling this month?

[driftless2]

Making someone such as Lileks a general reporter is like making a sixty homerun a year slugger bunt every time he’s up.

[JackOfVA]

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

[Mamzelle]

re: $4.00 for coffee? It cost me about $1.40 at Starbucks.)))

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.