The Coffee Wars become surreal

HaidaBucks:
Supports indigenous community by being indigenous and providing employment for other indigenous people

Starbucks:
Claims to support indigenous peoples while harassing a small indigenous-owned café for daring to use the word bucks

"This is a Buck Deer. Buck means "male" when used this way. We use it the same way. Haida Bucks are young Haida Gwaii males. If you find one of these in your coffee cup, do NOT attempt to drink him. Ask for a refill - quick!"

Knight-Ridder reports that Starbucks threatened two east coast coffee stores with suit for using its registered trademark "Christmas Blend." Starbucks has been selling Christmas Blend since 1985. The stores have now changed the name of their product to Christmas Coffee.

http://www.ipo.org/DailyNewsChron1997.html

I'm not sure why this would involved Second Cup, though I will admit that I've hit Second Cup several times after drinking at C'est What?, and those moments were a bit surreal.

AND WE WON!

no starbucks in hayes valley!

read about it here

read as: DANGEROUS (joke for saturnseansf)

I was always of the opinion Starbucks would fail horribly in Melbourne due to our high poulation of Italians, and thus a high standard of coffee that I think everyone expects. And enormo carboard cups full of watered down strange flavoured milky ick is NOT good coffee. Unfortunately I was wrong, and the unwashed masses seem to love the place. Not I, though.

No shit, there's a Starbucks in my house. I mean, it's not literally in my house, it's on ground zero of my apartment building, but it's like, yo, Starbucks, what the fuck? Get off my land. They don't ever listen. Starbucks is sinister and tricky; when they moved in, they insisted on buying the air-rights to this building for like 7,000 years. Which means it's completely against the lease for the management company to make this building any higher than it is--even, like, putting a satellite dish on top of this building is technically pissing off Starbucks. They could sue you for it. I mean, it's great for me cos without Starbucks, this shithole would've been torn down and replaced with a luxury highrise about 5 years ago. But it's still pretty creepy that they OWN THE AIR OVER MY BUILDING. I'm surprised they didn't figure out a way to buy the tenants.

I say - climb up on the roof, see if that pisses them off :D

I think Starbucks needs a bit of a reprieve while we go after those Blockbuster Video fuckers. They're the real evil monolithic corporation to be afraid of.

Yes, but not me. I think its on their website somewhere too.

Ask the Taylor family who run Bully Hill Wines...

Having just finished my penicillin, I sure wish I owned a winery.

just found this.

Surely you can get it black?

Yes you can, but surely you don't want to. Starbucks killed any chance of having good, cheep coffee in America. On the brighter side, Starbucks closed down all its stores in Israel.

I've seen the old logo, ask any of your friends who are Starbucks Managers, they may or may not have a Starbucks card gifted from Corp with that old logo on it. The new one is nicer, regardless of the reason.

http://www.mushrush.com/blogfat/archives/000150.shtml

Was it Janeane Garafalo who mentioned having to pee in a Starbucks only to find another Starbucks had opened in the bathroom? I'm pretty sure it was her.

Oh, and as I understand it, Moby's nickname actually predates his career. Apparently friends of his in high school called him that. So it's stolen from his relative's work, but he might not be the original thief.

stupid, ain't it? But the point is that this is not really about "coffee wars" as much as "corporate brand property maintainance".

ugh.

probably under some heading like "12.3.1 - Coffee Shop Culture and Ambiance"

man, i miss wawa's.

Yup, the Trademark Dilution Act. One of the most infuriating pieces of legislature ever passed. I don't have a problem with wanting to protect one's trademark as much as being forced to publicly protect it, in order to protect it.

I figure Seattle would suffer the same fate as your hipster java huts, but the independent/smaller chain coffee places here actually make Starbuck's service seem indifferent in comparison.

On this topic, I'm happy to have read somewhere that a "small" cup of coffee can still be bought at most starbucks, though you have to ask for it--ITS NEVER ON THE MENU.

That probably means they just make up the price, too.

yeah, i always feel kinda guilty giving the people in the local coffeeshop tips - because they really really don't deserve them - but i know that if i dont they're just give me even shittier service next time

Who owns the rights to BG and its characters, and can they be persuaded to sue that coffee behemoth for infringing their trademark?

Haha Jess I haven't set foot in an Oly record store since like 1995. If Rainy Day ever burns to the ground I'll happily roll in the ashes like a pig in muck.

The "nicer service at Starbucks" is something that bothers me about other businesses too: such as, why haven't more good, independent bookstores put out chairs like Barnes & Noble? Even at Powells, the grebtest bookstore on earth, you have to stand to read or else walk all the way over to the cafe (and buy something). Do places think snottiness and indifference is an essential part of the local atmosphere? Cause it's not.

Although there was that one time at the Voyeur with Jess, nancy, and I ,where our waitress was trying hard to act like Small Wonder, for no rational reason.

as well as shutting astores in the US, starbucks has just announced that they're closing a bunch of australian stores, including (probably) the one on lygon street here in carlton. i remember the hoo-hah when they opened it in the first place, it was the first one to open in this state and was quite provocative - lygon st's pretty touristy now but it was the big italian immigrant area in the '60s and the coffee culture that came from that still survives. lol @ overpriced swill franchise getting chased outta town for once.

Its funny Mikey said earlier upthread he was going to starbucks to get nice service instead of surly baristas - I've never had that at a good local coffee shop, but I have had frequent mcdonalds style cluelessness/inattentive service from Starbucks, Hudsons and the like.

mikey needs to harden up!

Here's an article about the closures:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24095176-3102,00.html

Starbucks Coffee Company (Australia) has run up an operating loss of more than $63 million in the two years to last October, company documents reveal.

lol @ staff being called "partners" too

I spoke to one of Australia's top baristas about this back when they were opening stores in Australia and he told me they'd crash sooner or later. He was of the opinion that they were entering too sophisticated a coffee market for their product.

When I went there myself, once, I wasn't so impressed. I have coffee with milk - straight espresso is too much for my weak stomach. I've found they overdo the milk, much as they do in the US. I ordered a double shot which was, if I recall, $4.00, as compared to $3.00-$3.50 at your local friendly barista's. Also, I had to queue for it, the atmosphere was a bit average/chain store... basically I felt it was a slightly more expensive, though slightly inferior product.

Australia's Crema Magazine had this to say:

On observing Starbucks’ worldwide rise over a number of years, they have clearly been a phenomenal success story in most countries where their tentacles have reached, but for several countries - Italy, and Australia. And the reason is clear - its the strength our own domestic espresso culture.

That is kind of awesomely self-aggrandizing!

Yay! Most of the Adelaide ones are about to shut.

Abbott:

A recent second place in the World Barista Championships in Copenhagen, along with a consecutive three winners of the World Latte Art Championships are testament to this. It’s actually a huge compliment to the increasing strength and depth of our own unique espresso culture!

just fyi.

Yeah we take our coffee really f'in seriously here. Well, in Melbourne and Sydney in particular, you'd still get a spooonful of nescafe in a cup if you were in some distant little farming town. But even small towns have nice cafes these days.

xpost

..that was from the article moley was quoting from btw

like i'm not just posting self-aggrandising australian cafe culture quotes

kthxbi

I wonder how Gloria Jeans is doing? Is their coffee any better?

I don't know. They do have thermometers in the milk jugs though.

They're all over the fukn place on the gold coast too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Jean%27s_Coffee#Controversies

Hmm see if they're doing well with a very similar product it would undercut the 'you can't defeat our sophisticated espresso culture' argument a bit.

Not to mention our kick arse latte art.

they're probably getting their business from all the h1lls0ng fundies!!

Aha that might be it.

Did starbucks have franchises tho?

Also "zarraffa's coffee" seems to be taking over Qld..

Yes, I think Hillsongsters have to drink at GJs.

Wait, so Gloria Jean's is a chain? There's one here, but I'd never heard of it so assumed it was a new thing - I was going to drink there once but the mister said they asked your name when serving you (false friendliness), so was all 'uh, fuck that' and didn't go.

haha yeah they're a chain. i never go into the stores but i do buy their flavoured coffee grounds, which are fantastic.

Yah they're a chain here - an Aust chain I think? - and the big issue with them as mentioned just upthread is their association with the H1lls0ng church, which is a massive fundie church that's taken root particularly in Sydney. One of those singalong evangelist churches that make concerts out of sunday sermon and actually encourage their flock to go forth and make lots of money and be as beautiful as possible, cause come on thats what god wants right? Ughhhh.

Gloria Jean's Coffees does sponsor many Hillsong-related initiatives such as Mercy Ministries, a pro-life charity that aims to help women who are pregnant, have drug issues, or eating disorders.[4][5] "Gloria Jean’s Coffees chose to support Mercy Ministries because there is a need in Australia for a dedicated charity that helps women with these difficult issues," said Peter Irvine, Co-Founder of Gloria Jean's Coffees"[6] Gloria Jean's Coffees has stated it is not intending to change its funding arrangements of Mercy Ministries, despite recent allegations that Mercy Ministries removes its charges from proven medical therapies and puts them in the hands of amateur counselors who employ techniques including exorcisms

gloria jean's was where aging housewives and old ladies went for coffee when i was a kid.

huh, started in chicago. did not know that.

Gloria Jean's Coffees was founded by Gloria Jean Kvetko in 1979 in Chicago, USA. Gloria Jean's Coffees began as a small coffee and gift shop in Chicago USA. In 1996 Gloria Jean's Coffees was introduced into Australia by Jireh International Pty Ltd and their founders Nabi Saleh and Peter Irvine. Jireh International Pty Ltd is a wholly Australian owned company. Jireh International Pty Ltd holds the the right to franchise the rights Gloria Jean's Coffees in Australia, and in 2005 purchased the rights to the Gloria Jean's Coffees brand for all international countries (with the exception of the USA and Puerto Rico). The company which oversees Gloria Jean’s Coffees in the United States is Diedrich Coffee.

Well I'll be damned.

GLORIA JEAN DOESN'T CARE ABOUT PUERTO RICANS

Starbucks also failed in Israel, normally a fertile market for American crap, and people there make the same claim about the "strong local espresso culture." But it's true, you really can get good coffee on almost any block in the nicer parts of Tel Aviv.

It's pretty significant, i think, that Starbucks failed in Italy. That lends some credence to the "strong local espresso culture" argument. I mean, it speaks a certain amount of hubris that they even tried to set up the franchise in Italy.