> Fast forward to today and Howard Schultz is despised in the Seattle area.
Did you even read the story? The founders wanted to make more coffee, Schultz wanted to make more stores. Seattle used to have an amazing coffee culture, and starbucks largely killed that. Schultz rightly gets the lion's share of the blame for that
Starbucks didn't kill it. Consumers did. Startbucks came to Australia and mostly failed (had to close lots of stores) as the local coffee culture is very strong. Starbucks was mostly ignored.
Starbucks seems to act as if it has a habit of making quarterly plans and mostly executing according to that intent.
But when I look at Consumers as a single entity it seems remarkably undisciplined. It can't seem to hold any plan in mind, coordinate its actions with any moment-to-moment follow-through on, or even _agree_ on a single intended plan. -- Consumers acts like it has no Chief Executive Function!
Does Starbucks corporation actually own Starbucks-branded coffeeshops in most countries other than the US? I thought usually it’s some local whale (like Maxim’s in HK/Macau) that buys the rights to the trademark and opens shops.
I'm not sure Starbucks would erode a places coffee culture, even in Seattle. If anything it would expand the pool of potential customers. I love and drink a lot of gourmet coffee/beans. I also visit Starbucks on occasion. I never go to Starbucks specifically for their coffee though, unless there is no good local cafe in the area. Starbucks is a lightweight coworking space / 3rd space at this stage.
Their predatory business practice killed a lot of local cafes. Places that were funky, cool, focused on their product and had a loyal base of locals but were kept afloat by tourists and other passersby who wouldn't cross a street, or just fell for brand recognition. They'd set up shop across the street or around the corner, and operate at a loss until they drove the locals off.
I'm loathe to admit that starbucks quality has gone up a bit lately, but even today their standard pull is burnt to hell in the name of homogeneity. So yeah, they dealt a huge blow to Seattle's (and many other cities) local cafes, and replaced them with a sanitized lack of culture.
For sure what you said happened however I’d argue it’s not a problem in places with legit coffee culture. Australia, Berlin, London to name a few places I’m intimately familiar with. Singapore on the other hand it most definitely is but that is a good reflection of the city tbh.
I'm from Singapore, and would fight you on your claim that Starbucks killed the local coffee culture. We have our own coffee culture, historically in the hawker centres, and it's most definitely still striving. Beyond that, there are tons of third wave coffee cafes that arrived in the past decade, mainly because of Australian influence. They're just not located at the shopping malls due to rental, where Starbucks and its ilk dominate.
Yes sorry I was comparing like for like and not kopi. I do love Singaporean hawker coffee culture. I’m going by experience from living in the heartland for a few years where the only 2 western cafes are coffee bean and Starbucks. They leave no space for a local alternative.
Definitely really good western café’s in Singapore too. Ronin is prob my favourite..... looks like they had to close :(
I agree, and I suspect Starbucks had other problems even in cities without much of a specialty or creative coffee culture (so, excluding London, Berlin, Melbourne, and I would add SF and a few others here).
For instance, many cities in southern and perhaps central Europe seem to have local cafes that don't do anything "special" with their coffee (what's a Chemex?) besides just existing as a local institution for decades with a consistent experience in quality and pricing, and that's something that I expect is very difficult for Starbucks or any foreign player to break into regardless of the quality or international popularity of the brand.
Totally agree. Claiming Starbucks killed Seattle coffee culture is a total joke. There are plenty of funky, independent coffee houses to support if you're willing to look for them. The price is generally higher than Starbucks, but so is the quality of the coffee.
"If you're willing to look for them" is kinda the issue. In the mid-late 90s, the independent shops were a significant majority. Now, even Vivace feels like a chain and the quality of their pull has tanked.
His presidential bid was DOA.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/29/howard-schul...