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Fauxbucks: Starbucks' apes indie coffeehouses it put out of business in effort to stay cool
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Coffee chain Starbucks is employing a new tactic to survive in this recession: mimic the coffeeshops it put out of business during its rise to fame.
This stunt, if you will, is originating in its city of origin, Seattle, where a store opened today that does not bear the Starbucks brand or too-familiar brown leather furniture. Yet, if offers poetry readings. Yes, there's a table apparently made from a boat (and no ubiquitous Starbucks furniture). Yes, it actually sells beer and wine too.
All this is trying to make you forget that it's still a Starbucks.
15th Avenue Coffee & Tea (as the faux-bucks is called) is apparently an old Starbucks store that closed for renovation and opened--after a green remodel--without the trademark name. Patrons at the faux-bucks can expect to see slightly higher prices for standard coffeehouse items likes lattes and americanos. The blended drinks that have made Starbucks so famous will not be served at all. Baked goods offered will not be those stocked at all Starbucks locations. In another old-is-new-again twist, baristas at the faux-bucks will be hand pulling shots on an old La Marzocco espresso machine (Starbucks employees currently use push-button machines).
My best guess is that the coffee chain is trying to cater to its base of macchiato-sucking addicts and sneakily try to get business from that segment of the population that thinks Starbucks is, like, totally evil.
My personal two cents on the latter is as follows:
1. Starbucks provides health insurance to employees, even part time ones, and that's great. Show me ten other restaurant/bakery/coffeehouse owners who do the same thing (and not grudgingly as the lawsuit-filing members of the GGRA do)
2. The prices are way more than I'm going to spend on coffee.
3. And the coffee is godawful.
Perhaps there's a somewhat more altruistic view of the matter? If Starbucks were lending its capital to ailing local businesses as some sort of shareholder, allowing the original owners to continue operating as an independent while taking a share of the profits, it would make more sense to shed the corporate branding. Judging from the amount of Starbucks locations that have closed around the country and especially here in SF, maybe they fear they've exceeded a saturation point?
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