I used to go to starbucks 20-25 years ago. I didn’t really need the sugar+caffeine+dairy. I enjoyed the 3rd space, a place to chat with friends and acquaintances, or meet someone new. and if I didn’t socialize there, I could read a book for a while and feel good about accomplishing that. The majority of the starbucks in my area have become “grab and go” and completely removed the seating area.
Myself, and most people I know, are more health conscious and price conscious than we used to be. It’s not worth it anymore.
I live in a rural area and while we have a Starbucks, it’s pretty awful. Dirty seating, long lines.
Across the street is a great espresso with seating.
A block away is a Vietnamese coffee.
Starbucks is dying as a company. They might live on a few more years until everyone figures out how much better other places are for coffee.
They just opened two new stores in my town. That said, they’re not busy.
Their blended drinks cost over 6 bucks. That’s crazy.
I have an espresso machine with a steaming wand at home and the few times I’ve had Starbucks in the last few years has been disappointing. Guess I’ve learned to steam milk better than the average teenager at a fast food joint. I bet I can heat up a frozen breakfast sandwich better than they can too. Mad skills, yo.😉
They over roast their coffee and it tastes burnt to me. I do most of my coffee at home with a french press. I can’t justify an espresso machine ($$$) for home though.
Starbucks is just not what it was. Wife gets them for a treat but we bought a kick ass ninja coffee maker and a grinder and have been doing it all at home. The savings allows us to buy the more expensive beans.
Plus I can now buy beans roasted in Canada and not support an American company.
Good
We’re broke lol
Yeah. Cause Starbucks over roasts their coffee to ensure consistency across the brand. It tastes like shit. Gas station coffee is better. You go to Starbucks for the milk shakes made in a coffee shop. You get coffee somewhere else.
Dunkin is literally better, unless things have changed, their policy was to always have a < 15 minute pot of coffee ready. Any longer and it starts to spoil. Freshly grinded beans and a freshly brewed is probably the single most important part of coffee, inexpensive beans can taste good.
Dunkin uses a blend of arabica and robusta beans so it is milder. Starbucks is 100% arabica and roast them more.
Food at Dunkin is shot tho imo. They always pull it before it’s actually hot at least at the one near me. Pretty much guaranteed I have to throw it in the microwave or toaster oven at home after buying it.
I prefer Dunkin by a long ways.
This is true at Starbucks too, the freshness of the brew is not why their coffee is bad. This is the company that sold charcoal as French roast for years before anyone noticed it was so overroasted it tasted like bad fish and ash. (I’ve never had a more difficult roast to find a pairing for - Smore’s is the answer, if anyone cares, to make starbucks french roast not taste awful)
I never understood why they roast it so hard. Who is asking for that?
Considering I have several actual good roasteries in town and pay the same price? Yeah, fuck the mermaid.
Edit: sp
Wait, you’re telling me that when the economy basically collapses, people can’t afford their regular coffee flavored morning milkshake?
I’m old enough to remember that when a Starbucks opened up in a part of the city that was known as being “slightly sketchy” then that area was in the process of starting to go through gentrification. now? at least here in Canada Starbucks is just a more expensive version of Tim Hortons who have some how made it possible for their coffee to taste worse than tims. And that gentrification stuff? nah man no longer applies. You’d be an idiot to go to a starbucks and pulling out your laptop to “work” these days as some fent head will just grab it off you after they wake up from their fade hunched over near the starbucks restrooms.
Growing up I could get good inexpensive coffee at any gas station across the prairies. Thanks Marketing!!
When was that?
I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and coffee at gas stations was shit.
I guess we had different standards? Maybe my gas stations made more fresh coffee than yours? I have come across shitty gas station coffee but that was the exception, not the rule.
As someone from the PNW, I’ve ever understood why there were lines at Starbucks here. We have great local coffee stands on basically every block, and they’re typically way better and much cheaper.
Right? Even the hit-or-miss family friendly drive thru coffee stands are better most of the time. Hell, if you’re like me and only want a mug of tar, the stripper coffee stands are still better than Starbucks.
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People like being part of trends
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People like milkshakes they can deny are milkshakes
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Starbucks coffee tastes burned, not worth their price.
Anti-union strike-breakers are losing business? Say it ain’t so.
Starbucks was an amusing rise and fall.
- Put one on every street-corner, possibly across the street from each other.
- Run all the other coffee shops out of business
- Let your stores fail because they can’t sustain themselves
- Competitors notice this, and move in with drive-through-only stores
Of course the competitors are small chains and the original shops were indie, but that’s just the free hand of the market fisting some folks without lube
