Not amused.

[jaguar]

Bloody americans, not happy with bombings afghanistan i've noticed a new stage in the australia invasion campign, STARBUCKS has open in Melbourne. GodDAMNIT we know how to make coffee very well thankyou very much we have a large european sector here that can make REAL coffee we don't need AMERICANS TELLING US how to make COFFEE.
(as you can tell i take my coffee very seriously)

[lisa]

Hey, don't sweat it. If your coffee really IS better, no one will go to Starbucks and they'll close.

If they stay open, others must disagree with you and, heck, that means the other coffee places that you like will be that much less crowded.

[Undertoad]

I used to not like Starbucks. Then I went to West Virginia, where they don't have Starbucks. And then I was REALLY not amused.

[jaguar]

that's the thing!
cafe culture in melbourne is so strong its not funny, half of melbourneis like little italy!
So, so many fantastic cafes its not funny we don't need no stinkin franchise trying to tell US what good coffee is *hmph*

Hey, don't sweat it. If your coffee really IS better, no one will go to Starbucks and they'll close.

Looked pretty empty, still its the MORALITY of the thing

Friend's father recently wentto the US (Toronto i think), his first comment on coming back was THANK GOD they know how to make coffee here..

Man.

I have to say...

WHAT THE FUCK?

FYI, Toronto is in Canada. And I was there in the Fall of '99. There were all these Canadians saying shit like "Fucking Starbucks, like we need a US coffee shop here" or "fucking Pier 1 imports, piece of shit US company" or "God I wish we didn't have so much US tv here" or "Man, I wish the US wasn't destroying our culture".

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

That shit wouldn't happen if the majority of people didn't want it to. If there's an operating Pier 1 imports there, it means PEOPLE LIKE IT AND GIVE IT THEIR MONEY. If there's too much American TV, it's because PEOPLE ARE FUCKING WATCHING IT. If your culture is becoming too Americanized, it's because YOUR NEIGHBORS WANT IT TO BE THAT WAY. If there are too many American movies playing in foreign theaters, it's because PEOPLE ARE GOING TO WATCH THEM. And if there's a fucking operating Starbucks, it's because PEOPLE ARE BUYING SHIT THERE. But of course, you can't, in your super-enlightened "I'm not an American so I'm intelligent" mindframe, grasp the fact that DIFFERENT FUCKING PEOPLE LIKE DIFFERENT FUCKING THINGS. If Starbucks gets any business, it's from Australians, but I'm sure you'd be all too quick to point the finger and blame an American company for ruining your coffee independence. Shut the fuck up. If you don't want it, don't drink it. Tell your friends not to drink it. But don't blame it on Americans. It's there because there's interest, and if it stays, it's not our fucking fault.

[BrianR]

Try switching to decaf. Sheesh!

I'm sure I noticed an Aussie tongue in his cheek.

Brian

[jet_silver]

I -hate- Starbucks. As much as I hate, well, Vegemite and those horrible musk flavored Life Savers.

Bad news for you, Jag, Vegemite was here long before Starbucks was over there. If Australia Fair wants to achieve cultural dominance by means of dead yeast and meat-flavored candy, I'm afraid it deserves Starbucks, and White Castle, and Chia Pets, and Beadazzlers, and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Nobody deserves the Starbucks System, though, which is to set up right next door to the competition and not have anyone inside (ever try to -relax- in a Starbucks? They are the antithesis of a decent cafe) so harried commuters will go to the Starbucks instead of having a decent cup of coffee in a place that welcomes them.

I keep going to Peet's, even though I pass two Starbucks' on the way, because Peet's is a -cafe-.

[Undertoad]

Well, around here there is no competition for them to set up next to. The competition here is a really crappy cafe 4 miles away, where I would never go in the first place. For beans, the competition is the supermarkets, who don't know what they're selling and don't give a damn.

The whole question is really whether franchises are what people want. If you hate Starbucks for being a franchise and acting competitively, there are an awful lot of other chains you have to hate as well, in my opinion.

But I think the franchises have had an easy time of it because the mom and pop places in the world have no sense for business. While developing web sites, I tried to deal with both independent bookstores in the Philly area; one went out of business while the other owners were a terrible pain to deal with and could not even make basic decisions.

agreed, that is definitely a problem. my problem is that i'm not a businessman. i do computer repair on the side, and my rate is "whatever you think is fair." it's easier when you're actually selling a product, of course. but most of these places are real humans that are sensitive and don't have a real business sense about them. running a business is damn hard work. nice people tend to want to give away their work/time for free, make just enough to live off of. unfortunately, that doesn't work in the business world...

anyway... if you wanna hate franchises, that's fine. i agree that you have to hate them all, or at least a sizeable majority... i just get *really* tired of people spouting venom because something is american... i think we could all do without that kind of intolerance...

[jaguar]

er....dham.......i wasen't being that serious........yes decaf looks like a good idea.....Man talk about knee-jerk.......

I'm guessing it'll die, its not in a fantstic locatin for a cafe and man, competition around here cafe wise is already crazy, i counted nearly 40 just wandering round the city =)

jet_silver - i tink that theres more US franchiese/tv/etc here than 2 products

Toronto.....something starting with T i remember....ill ask him tonight, any idea where he/I may have meant?

Please...this thread *Was* 99% in jest...It was just a joke along the usual lines of war, taking the piss out of it...i should have added a
warning i guess..... like
THIS IS A JOKE - LEAVE YOUR FLAMETHROWERS AT THE DOOR
Cafe culture round here is *huge*, its not the right enviroment for it so i've got a feeling it'll close (it took a spot next to the enormous nike store that's closing next week too (after 4 years of continual protest and lack of intersting they gave up)

[elSicomoro]

I'm sorry, but I love Starbucks. Before they came to St. Louis (in the summer of 1998), we had a limited, snooty, "fuck you! We're hip!" scene, which Starbucks brought down to earth. For a while, a coffee craze hit teens in their last couple of years of high school, which spawned a few coffee houses (including my beloved SoHo). They're all gone now.

Shit...1995. 2 in the morning on a hot June night...or pretty much almost every night during that summer: Sitting at Denny's, sipping coffee, eating omelettes. Those were the days...

[jet_silver]

Where I used to live there was this little, poky cafe that was comfortable. It was very much in the European idiom. You could stay there as long as you liked, there was a pleasant muddle of abandoned newspapers and people came and went in a steady trickle all day long. During rush hours they would provide to-go cups for the train commuters.

Starbucks moved in, two doors down. They got most of the business because they were a) new, b) famous, c) not a poky little cafe. The place glistened.

But you can't stay long in a Starbucks. It is too cold, the seats are hard, the lighting is merciless and they go around picking up the newspapers. Starbucks is -not a cafe-. It is a store that sells coffee. Not -bad- coffee, mind you. However, the store that sold coffee got the yuppies and the poky cafe got people who like cafes.

UT, in a lot of ways capitalism and the principle of majority rule are the same. The result is everybody gets what the majority wants. In this case the poky cafe went under. Perhaps that is merely the survival of the fittest. I'm just tired of the fittest being the banal, the average, the mediocre - and I felt the town was damaged by that kind of leveling.

So - if you like Starbucks you can join a whole lot of people who do: Starbucks is successful and it is probably responsible for cultivating in some people a taste for coffee that would otherwise be lacking. And I understand it is penetrating the Midwest, a desert when it comes to decent coffee. But at the same time, be aware that there is a better way, a real cafe, and if you have one in your neighborhood it may please you better.

I am very sympathetic with Jaguar's rant, my previous bitchy comments notwithstanding.

[Undertoad]

Yes, well, if it turns out that the tyranny of the majority says that you can have good coffee, but can't sit around in the place you got it... well I for one will remain optimistic that I can eke out a life somehow. It'll be difficult to bear, but...

What we are really railing against is change. Today business is short on luxuries like expensive real estate to devote to people sitting around consuming borrowed newspapers and not buying anything. Space is a resource, so in a busy culture where time is at a premium, you'll more likely succeed by volume and throughput.

In a town near me there is a poky little cafe that sells Folger's out of a Mr. Coffee in foam cups. If this cruddy little place were put out of business by a Starbucks, it would be a serious step up. So it works both ways. The "levelling" you refer to would be improving the culture of the crappy places out there.

I have a rant that I trot out at this point, which some people are tired of, but it's time. A few years ago I went to Charleston West Virginia for a week on business. The first day I drank the coffee at the seminar I was attending. It was weak, bitter, and cold. The second day I drank the coffee at the hotel where I was staying. It was weak and bitter.

That night, I drove around town looking for a coffee shop. I found one. It opened at 7:30 am. The following morning, I went there and when it opened at 7:40, I took their Mr. Coffee carafe and poured it into one of the complimentary foam cups. They didn't even pour it for you. And the coffee was weak and bitter.

Facing another day of crappy coffee was too much, but I had a non-refundable ticket. I finally found a decent cup - at a Krispy Kreme.

Now, oddly enough, these West Vriginians worship the laid-back, rush-free culture that doesn't fly in the big city. I take that to mean they don't really need coffee; I take that to mean that coffee is a part of the rush culture that doesn't support sitting around.

It still boils down to: what we are really complaining about is change, and we're largely concerned with style over substance. The people buying coffee at Starbucks have all made a choice in their lives, and they operate to maximize what they believe to be best for them. You can tag them "yuppies" and complain that they are without an appreciation for the better things in life. But at some level, that's unfair too; their choices are theirs, they believe they are improving their lives through them.

Man I can be voluminous when I want to be....

[Undertoad]

And one more thing. These "newspapers" you speak of. I've heard of them, but it's been a while. Isn't that where they used to cut down tons and tons of trees, mash them into pulp, run that through rollers, just to deliver it to big industrial presses, to print "news" that is up to 24 hours old by the time it reaches you?

How quaint. How wasteful!

Print is dead. I get better news from Yahoo and CNN, better editorials from 100 different websites, and better "letters to the editor" from here. And the local papers duplicate their dead-tree models on their websites.

amen, reverend.

also, i'm eating some REALLY GOOD clam chowder.

but that's beside the point.

the point is: fuck coffee. drink root beer.