Like any good community citizen, I try to avoid the big corporate chains when there is a locally owned alternative available. I frequent the local hardware stores, buy from local pizza joints, buy produce at the farmer's market, and keep big boys like WalMart at arm's length (and I have really long arms). And since my girlfriend works for a fair trade coffee company, Starbucks is a definitely a big no-no.
Yeah, I've always been a fan of the local neighborhood coffee shop. Free wi-fi, comfy couches, nice atmosphere: what could be better? Yes, I like something nice and homey and mom-n-pop feeling, like 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in Seattle.
Go ahead and click on that link. Click around their website a bit. Trust me, it's crucial to my story. I'll still be waiting here when you get back.
Dum de dum de dum, doo de doo... Hum de hum de hum... You back? Looked like a nice place, right? I mean, they didn't show much of the interior or anything, but they seemed okay, didn't they? And they're in an old Starbucks, too! Take that! Score one for the Little Guy! Little Guy: 1, Starbucks... okay, Starbucks is still winning on that count, but at least the little guy's got a little fight left in him.
Oh, wait, unless 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea is really just a Starbucks with the Starbucks name and logo completely stripped from the site. Hide the brand name, pretend to be an "authentic" local coffeeshop. Eek.
Talk about your wolf in sheep's clothing.
From The Wire:
In one of the more brazen attempts by a corporation to disguise itself as a locally owned business, Starbucks is un-branding at least three of its Seattle outlets. The first of these conversions, just reopened after extensive remodeling, is called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. All of the signage and product labels bear this new name. The Starbucks corporate logo is nowhere to be seen.
From Jim Hightower posting at AlterNet:
With Starbucks' sales declining as more and more caffeine consumers reject the cookie-cutter corporate climate that the chain epitomizes, it is launching a new line of stores that disappears its name. There's no corporate signage on the new buildings, no logo stamped on every product inside and none of the generically bland ambience that makes one Starbucks just like the other 16,000 in the chain.
Instead, the new shops strive to be the anti-Starbucks, dressing up as funky neighborhood coffeehouses with a cool, local vibe. A sort of rustic, thrift-shop decor screens the corporate presence, and such additions as live music and poetry readings are meant to lend an aura of down-home authenticity.
Those bastards.
h/t to the little lady, who's been sending me emails about this all day.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
crazypants
King Kaufman
Ken Honeywell
Bill S.
Juliet Waters
She Blogs
Salon.com
Comments
I never got to Starbucks, or really any other coffee places. I know, I'm a boring coffee drinker, snubbing my nose at mainstream cultural activities. Don't hate me.
Glad you support ‘local owned’ – they need more people like you to survive.
- rated
Rated for standing up for the local folks!
Go local!
If I find out that Savannah's Sentient Bean is a Starbucks front, you can roll me in cornmeal and fry me. Thank you for the disturbing but necessary heads up.
"Starbucks has been in the forefront of supporting small, organic coffee growers."
That is not true. Starbucks has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the world of fair trade. You wouldn't know from their advertising, though. A very small percentage of their coffees are actually fair trade certified (between 3%-5%, last I checked), but they market the shit out it. And because they market the shit out it, their advertising campaign drowns out the voices of the smaller, more independent companies who were on the forefront of the fair trade movement and are actually fully committed to fair trade. Starbucks also uses their tremendous power and influence to water down fair trade standards, and have instituted their own "C.A.F.E. standards," which are supposedly good for farmers, but there's no way for us to really ever know for sure, since they're not independently verified by any outside agency. We just gotta take their word on it, which is suspiciously reminiscent of tobacco companies who set up their own medical commissions to "prove" smoking was safe.
Customers want fair trade? Okay, we'll get a small percentage of fair trade beans and shout "fair trade!" from the mountaintops. People want small, locally owned coffee shops? Okay, we'll give them that, too. It sucks, because they're actually big and powerful enough to make a difference if they were fully committed. Instead, they seem to be fully committed to deception. Starbucks may have been awesome back when they were a small Seattle company, but they've crossed over to the dark side. Sorry.
Welcoming you? We're you there before?