- expensive
- better alternatives abound
- corporate has questionable morality
Maybe it’s just my city but Starbucks isn’t expensive any longer, as every coffee shop increased in price to match Starbucks.
A black coffee for $4 both local places and at Starbucks.
I stopped going there when I realized it’s all just sugar. All the yummy drinks are just sugar.
My husband and I started going to the co-op and getting fancy coffee beans and make drip coffee each morning. Cheaper, just as delicious (if not even better), and we don’t have to go out
Coffee shop? More like a dessert-in-a-cup emporium! Finding normal coffee on the menu these days is like a treasure hunt. ha.
Well done, definitely better!
Have you stumbled across James Hoffmann’s videos perchance?
We love him!
Stopping by to declare that James Hoffman is the best ☕
I started boycotting Starbucks when I learned they had partnered with Nestle for store-bought products - their Sumatra and Komodo Dragon coffees were pretty good.
I send an email every year or so to let them know, since boycotts aren’t effective if the group being boycotted doesn’t know why, with predictably apathetic responses.
Anyway, if you’re a no-Nestle person then Starbucks is on the list…
Thanks! Did not know about the Nestle connection. We stopped going to Starbucks when it moved to a fast food type experience vs the cafe feel it had at launch here.
Will be verifying they moved the hell away from Nestle before we consider returning.
Awesome. Unfortunately the agreement was made “in perpetuity” so there’s no obvious route to them leaving Nestle.
That’s part of why I actually email them, and in the first email I said that I’m bothering to send anything because I do really like their stuff, and I think their other charitible actions mean I can hope they’ll take customer feedback. As opposed to Nestle which I expect to tell me to gfm.
I’ve steadily leaned away from that belief as the company digs farther in to being every crappy anti-labor chain.
First McDonald’s and now Starbucks. Cool. Screw em.
Now do Chipotle next!
But only when they don’t have Carne Asada
I stopped eating at Chipotle many years ago when my local Chipotle caused dozens of food poisoning cases. Luckily there are lots of mom-and-pop burrito joints where I live, and their food is almost always better and cheaper than Chipotle.
The chairs in that picture are peak 2010s.
Starbucks gives me apple fanboy vibe…
Isn’t this because they were supporting Israel?
As much as I wish it was, it’s more likely people are cutting back spending across junk food, see McDs having the same problem.
I think it’s just a combination at this stage. Something for everyone to hate about them.
They’re anti-union. They’re meme levels of expensive in an era of strapped cash. People are conscious of “local” business over something they know is a chain. Brand reputationn for low quality for the price has set in. And lastly people are aware of their stagnation. There’s nothing “revolutionary” going on in the coffee industry to draw customers who have been turned off back to them. Even McShungles can draw people back to them with a special sale on something. Starbucks never does that I’m aware of (and if they do they’re doing a shit job of advertising as evidenced by my lack of knowledge)
Maybe it’s because their coffee is garbage, their prices are high, and many people have less disposable income than they used to.
Here in the NW, in their own home territory, they’re few and and far between these days. There is way too much good coffee around for them to support being on every street corner like they used to be.
There is way too much good coffee around for them to support being on every street corner like they used to be.
Frankly, I don’t know what they were thinking, the barrier to entry to get a good coffee shop going is a lot lower than say a restaurant or fast food joint. They don’t need kitchens or seating areas or food stuff or even a big enough lot for a parking lot and I’d bet the margins for coffee are a lot bigger. It was never going to be very long before competitors were everywhere lol
Whee hee! Look! Another signpost for a recession. McDs also are taking a hit bc of pricing and such
1/4 teaspoon ground tumeric 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger 1 tablespoon coco Thoroughly mix with ground coffee Brew in French press You’re welcome.
Donut shop style medium roast in a percolator, add 1 serving powdered Mexican hot chocolate to your cup. Mmm, yeah.
Percolators look cool, but they are horrible for brewing coffee. It pretty much necessitates burning your coffee, because it has to boil the already brewed coffee to send it back through for more rounds to keep brewing. That’s not ideal.
Cardamom coffee is where it’s at!
I like some things from Starbucks, but ever since the manager tore into an autistic girl for having the gall to have boundaries while being sexually harassed, I stopped going. I even reported that POS manager to the DM. Fuck that guy. Girl did nothing wrong and got shit on for “not reporting it the right way”, “not working it out like an adult”, and “being mean”. FFS, the person she was training was the damn poster child for Sexual Harassment and she told him no, she did not want to be touched nor hit on.
I much prefer my local coffee shops, but they are all ~15 minutes away. Only one of them has a decent amount of seating with outlets. The rest are small and don’t really accommodate people who want to work for a few hours, which is the main reason I am going to a coffee shop in the first place. The only close one was that Starbucks.
Honestly, it wasn’t the $7 coffee that turned me away from starbucks. It was the $7 coffee that taste like toilet water, when there are no shortage of local, cheaper coffee shops with amazing brews made by people who actually want to be there, who also won’t be fired for unionizing.
Why would you go to Starbucks if another local coffee shop was nearby? Their coffee is fine, but it loses taste tests to McDonald’s. They’re anti union. They’re too expensive. You can usually get a better coffee elsewhere.
I love the Starbucks sugar and fat loaded frappucinos.
Fortunately, there’s a unionized Starbucks near me! A little out of the way but I make the trip. I feel ok supporting that branch and only that branch.
The reason is the app. If you’re in a hurry, being able to walk in and have your coffee ready is huge. I love to support the local coffee shops and I do on weekends, but it can be risky in the middle of the week if you’ve got to get to work and the local place has a long line or someone ahead of you orders a fancy drink and all you want to do is grab a cup of coffee, pay, and leave.
That’s crazy. Someone told me McDonald’s coffee is pretty good for the lower price range. I tried it a few times since you never know if it was just a bad batch, and I gotta say it was pretty awful, not for me. I just avoid starbucks because they think they can charge you the most ridiculous price I’ve seen for ok coffee. I have a few local places I will go to if I need something. Sadly, they are pretty expensive as well these days, but they are still cheaper than starbucks.
I mean it’s a low bar. Starbucks coffee is fucking terrible.
It’s no contest for my taste buds. Black coffee from McDonald’s tastes like carbon, whereas coffee from Starbucks actually has a coffee flavor.
I wonder if the people who claim that only order the sugary stuff. I tried McDonald’s a couple of times recently after reading online that they got the Tim Hortons OG coffee provider and it was awful. I’m not a fan of Starbucks but at least they serve consistently good coffee (not great). I only get it if I’m on company expenses
I personally do not like any sugar in my coffee unless at a Viennese coffee house. I have a lot of amazing coffee roasters in the area.
I still find McDonald’s coffee to be good for the price. Well, as long as there is a bit of creamer in it. I don’t ever eat at McDonald’s, I only go there for coffee if I need something quick and cheap that is better than gas station / 7-Eleven / Starbucks coffee.
I don’t use creamer/milk in any actual good coffee. I prefer my coffee black to actually taste it, and normally it’s already sweet without anything added. And don’t like drip coffee usually.
The best mass market coffee I’ve had is, no joke, Sheetz. If their fancy machines are to be believed, they’re grinding the beans fresh every time and doing some kind of pressurized brewing method. For each cup. And if you buy something else it’s usually free.
Yes but Sheetz has that dumb creamer machine that jizzes French Vanilla into your coffee.
Wawa has great coffee, too. I don’t think it’s anything to do with the coffee itself or the brewing process - it’s because they sell a shit ton of it so you never get stale coffee that’s been sitting in an urn all day.
It’s almost Pumpkin Spice coffee season! I look forward to seeing the pumpkin on the wawa door. Then I buy like 10 bags!
I like their Christmas blend the best. I always buy a bunch of bags thinking it will last me until summer, and then it’s gone by the end of January.
Funny how everyone’s tastes are different. There is a Sheetz with a gas station on the way back from where I go skiing a lot and I often stop for gas and coffee. I keep hoping the coffee won’t be garbage, but it always is.
I don’t even like Starbucks but there are plenty of blends they have that I would pick over sheetz any day.
I like MacDonalds coffee, but it is acidic, which I equate to the ‘breakfast blend’ Latin American type coffee that I assume it is. I can absolutely see that as tasting awful to some palates.
Also has been some years since I had the hot coffee. I did have their ice coffee a few years ago, and it was solidly okay for 1 CAD.
My local cafes are just better, and they’re just as close as Starbucks. It’s not that they aren’t busy, their sales just aren’t growing and shareholders don’t like it when the line doesn’t go up.
Damnit, they’re Union Busters? Fuck man, there goes my adult sugar drinks D=
On the other hand you can now support local businesses instead of Starbucks!
Workers are trying hard to unionize
Cool, union busting is unfortunately one of my own battle lines, so hopefully this means I wont have to avoid Starbucks for long! (Because yeah, I guess I am avoiding them now)
Their prices are so expensive. Corporate executives do whatever they need to in order to increase profits right now, even if it destroys a customer base.
Starbucks also often don’t have bathrooms anymore. Starbucks used to be a place you could go to, sit down, use a bathroom if you wanted, use the Internet, and then buy something reasonably priced if you felt like it, but also just be there without buying anything.
Now they want KYC through an App before you buy a $20 Latte so you can get a QR code in the App to use a bathroom, if they have one. The enshitification is real and then they are shocked-gasp, shocked!-that fewer people are there. “Why don’t they like the QR Codes?”
The real surprise is how burnt coffee every became popular in the first place
Wait, isn’t espresso supposed to taste like a tire fire?
Why is it consistently burnt? It’s the worst coffee around. Is it actually the coffee that they burn or is it the milk?
Anyway never supporting those genocidal freaks again.
I’ve only had it black as I always take it, there is no coffee I’ve had that tasted more over-roasted so consistently. Its like they made a mistake the first time, and just kept going with it out of tradition. Its vile.
Because it’s a massive franchise. When you go into a Starbucks they want it to taste the same no matter where you get one. People are creatures of habit and it’s easier to get someone to get the same thing than it is to try out local shops wherever they go because it might be bad or too different from what they normally prefer. It’s one of the reasons fast food chains are / were very popular in the US. It’s not about the quality, it’s about the consistency
Ton of sugar. It disgust me but apparently pepole dont like unsweteened cofee .
