Try as I might, I just can't divorce myself from Starbucks.
My latest excuse is that I go for the beans. Specifically, Terraza blend is the SBUX product I can't (yet) live without. On what I believe was my first visit to a Starbucks (in Chicago) in 1995, I walked out with a bag of Terraza and have been hooked ever since. Interestingly, Terraza seems to be one of the few—if not the only—of its coffees that are not roasted very dark (or "burnt" as the critics say).
Since Terraza is seasonal, I'll be stocking up on a couple pounds so that I can try to "reverse engineer" it and reproduce it with locally roasted coffee. Also, if it indeed comes off Tuesday (haven't seen or heard any updates), walking into a Starbucks and hearing early Genesis will be an almost psychedelic experience.
I believe that Starbucks' great advantage lies in its omipresence. Just as most Americans go to McDonald's regularly, Starbucks becomes a landmark in people's lives, and it feels vaguely comforting to go there. It will be interesting to see how the inevitable tinkering with the formula that will result from the stock's slump (even raising prices hasn't seemed to help much yet) will affect this, if at all.
