I'm Done With Starbucks

Do me a favor. Bring your own cheese and tell me what they charge you.

 

You aren't kidding. The business school I went to was named after the CEO of Caribou. On the first floor of the business building was a coffee stand.

A Starbucks coffee stand.

 

After drinking Caribout coffee at a couple places in the Midwest, my dad tried to buy a franchise.

He was that impressed with the coffee. And he goes through like a $40 Starbucks debit card a week.

As far as he can tell, they aren't franchising.

Sheer lunacy.

 

I do enjoy visits to Columbus because you can get Horton's and Caribou there.

I'm OK with Starbucks, but I probably only go once a month or so. I generally drink my own coffee at home and when I'm on the road, I'll find a more local place to get espresso. If it's an airport, Starbucks it is.

Whoever mentioned Peet's was on to something. There was a Peet's next to the hotel I used to stay at for hoops games in Portland, Ore., and that place rocked.

If Starbucks had free wireless, I'd probably go more often. In my town, there's a Panera at the other end of the strip mall from the Starbucks, and they have pretty solid coffee and free wireless. I end up spending a lot of time working there to get away from the office.

 

Is there some sort of social ruling on drinking Starbucks in a place that brews Starbucks coffee and uses Starbucks cups, but is not in fact a Starbucks? I'm concerned about being seen in the street with a Starbucks cup and judged as lifestyle failure, when in fact I just got the coffee in, say, a hotel lobby or hospital cafeteria.

Perhaps there should be different cup available for Starbucks sold in places that do not also offer nutmeg scones and The Lost Etta James bootleg cds?

 

Be a real rebel. Stick to water.

 

Oy, talk about a lifestyle statement. 700 brands of bottled water, and you know they all come from a faucet connected to a pipe. Spring water 'bottled at the source?' Like a team of swiss mermaids are hand-dunking the bottles, one by one, in the crystal clear spring under the waterfall? Do you WANT that water? Where do you suppose the mermaids pee?

Or as WC Fields said: "I don't drink water. Fish fuck in it."

You know how you sit down in a really nice restaurant, and Trevor the Waiter Who Will Be Our Server Tonight asks 'Would you like our bottled water, or <snif> tap water for the table?'

Just seems like a trick question.

 

yeah, that sounds like about every non-cuban restaurant here in south florida. two and a half years of living here and it's now standard for me to say when the waiter comes that we'll have flat water from the tap. i said that by habit in a restaurant in chicago a couple months ago and you could tell the waitress was busting to either say something snarky or go tell her friends what i'd said.

that said, water is my drink about 99 percent of the time when i'm not imbibing. i don't pay for the upscale stuff, either. plain old aquafina or dasani or whatever generic brand is cheapest is fine with me if i'm at a store. at a restaurant i'll take it straight from the tap.

 

Buying gallon jugs of supermarket brand water or drinking from the office cooler is a lifestyle statement?

Maybe that I'm a skinflint. Sometimes I splurge and get the distilled gallon for a buck-49.

 

Ok coffee drinkers, question:

I understand the need to drink coffee early in the morning, to get that shot of caffeine. But why do you drink hot coffee on a hot day at 4-5-6-7 pm at night?

 

Because I'm just going to work at 5

 

I think about the whole bottled water thing and it makes me think of the microbrew argument. I'm a fan of micros but at one of the first barbecues I went to after moving to this corner of Red Sox Nation, I cracked open a blueberry wheat and was immediately ridiculed.

"What are you drinking that for? We've got Miller Lite in a can right here!"

Um, yeah. However, I understand the affinity toward micros. I don't understand the affinity to bottled water, save for if you live in an area where the tap water is atrocious (and there are places like that). A Brita filter jug pays for itself, and I always think, why buy the bottled when the water comes for free?

As far as coffee goes, I avoid the usual suspects as much as possible. Folgers does not go down smoothly, nor does New England Coffee. If I stray from Starbucks it's usually Seattle's Best or Green Mountain.