Gabrielle Procter writes: Residents of Exeter, the most clone-like town in Britain, according to the New Economics Foundation, might do well to look to their American counterpart in Louisville for guidance. Alarmed by the spread of chain stores and the…

I have asked people that as SB fans, what is the attraction? Men, say, “no surprises”. They are generally risk adverse types. There is also the type that is just too busy to seek out anything, even if it is on the way. Creatures of mindless habit. Women have a favorite pseudo milkshake. ‘Nuff said.

For my on the road wifi, I prefer Kinkos to Starbucks. Quieter, and I can bring in better coffee.

“Starbucks [is moving] to automated espresso machines that tamp and pour espresso shots on their own, leaving the Starbucks barista to just push a button and steam some milk. Lara Wyss, a spokeswoman for Starbucks, said an automatic machine would soon be in each of the company’s 6,800 American stores.”
(from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/national/16coffee.html?8hpib)

I think it’s fair to predict the mediocrity will sink a step or two with this.

There is a funny story about a local starbucks here that opened up about a block away from a local, employee run coffee shop called
“The Red and Black Cafe”. (We call it the communist coffee shop but more on that later).

Well, less than a day before the starbucks opened, a piece of concrete was thrown through the big picture glass window at starbucks.

Nobody was ever apprehended, but the t-shirt that is now sold at the Red and Black, stating “Just a stone’s throw from Starbucks” is selling quite well

(and hiya pete)

No, the reason I hate Starbucks is because they are tricking millions of people into forking over their cold hard cash for something that is overpriced and unnecessary.

I have my own contrarian take on Starbucks, for another reason. I remember back in 1999 or so when there was a lot of pressure on Starbucks from activists on the left to offer fair-trade coffee. And then one day, they decided to. For all that liberals focus on supporting local businesses, you can’t help but appreciate how with one centralized decision fair-trade coffee was made available at thousands of new venues. How long has it taken for the same number of independent cafes to also do so?

Starbucks is the same. I may call it the evil empire, but bless it if I’m in a strange airport first thing in the morning.

Starbucks will let you, for a $1.50 cup of admittedly imperfect coffee, use it as an internet cafe. When I want good coffee, I make it at home or seek out a true coffeeshop. When I need caffeine and wifi on the road, I seek out a starbucks. It beats sitting in a kinkos, a hotel business center, and just about anything else that is predictably available.

NOW – if there’s a funky local coffeeshop with wifi, I would obviously check in there and not starbucks. Unfortunately those funky local coffeeshops frequently don’t exist outside of major cities, and when they do, they somehow don’t seem capable of making themselves easily findable or listing themselves on the web (much less listing themselves as wifi hotspots). All’s it takes is a good ADSL line, a cheap wireless router, and fifteen minutes of HTML and people like me would be there over starbucks. Ah well.

carry on.