Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

President Kennedy

I’m sitting in an Indian take-out place watching news coverage of former Presidential intern Mimi Alford’s allegations about her affair with President Kennedy.  It reminds us that in the days before laptops, people unfolded their real laps eagerly. The show was preceded by a sitcom that portrayed (or, more accurately, parodied) the state of relationships between the sexes fifty years later.  The sitcom episode’s plot strongly suggested a lesbian threesome.  We’ve learned to consider such things blasé, while the concept of a President screwing his underlings continues to register shock and dismay. Despite our increased tolerance, the real comfort level with sexuality has, I believe, only diminished.

 I’d argue that this results from utter confusion as to what gender and sexuality is or does—not to mention utter confusion about human nature. We’re perfectly OK, it would seem, with the fact that the marketplace slices and dices us into boys and girls to decide whether we prefer wings or yogurt for lunch.  We’re not OK with the idea of a man getting as much sex as he can, or if we are, he’d better be that guy who breathes fire and spits fake blood on stage for a living. What we’d think of a woman who had the same appetite? We’d probably have her star in a reality show too—but most definitely would not be OK with it, as any fifteen-minute visit to Twitter or Facebook reveals.

Few, if any, other areas of life have such a power to set our mood. Discomfort and discontent in the romantic arena seeps into other areas of our lives; conversely, when all is well in our love lives, the rest of life takes on the same rosy glow. I guess I offer no value judgments right now other than to say we should spend more time contemplating that mystery and just kind of being in it, regardless of our current status or level of success.  That’s a much better object of our attention than allegations about a long-dead President, who surely was a cad but who may well have saved our planet from going into the microwave on high.

 

East Side/Riverwest: Snapshots: Starbucks (N. Downer Ave.)

This morning at the N. Downer Ave. Starbucks location, the staff unpacked the Valentine's Day-themed hot cups that will mark the holiday, featuring a heart design and the word "Love". The barista informed the rest of the staff: "We're supposed to push these until Valentine's Day." I was upset enough when Starbucks began selling the emotion of "bliss" in its cranberry bars; now it seems to claiming to peddle "love." Love seems like an overwhelming concept somtimes, but I would argue that even the non-romantically inclined such as I can readily experience and express love. To me, love is nothing so much as an attitude towards life. It's one that runs counter to the prevailing ethos in our society.

To me, it's consistently making the difficult choice, even when we can hear the noise of the gears grinding and belts scraping in our heads and hearts. I'm happy to be out of touch with the only slightly younger people I overhear in hipster coffeehouses and pizza joints. I don't need a repertoire of snarky pop cultural references. It's much more gratifying to be moving into a stage of life where I can realize and nurture my store of expertise so that others may take it and grow it. I'm not in a relationship right now, but it's fun to be at an age where I know I can feel things on a deeper level. When it does happen, I know it will be a whopper!

Conviction and Transaction

The bar for two things seems to be set oddly low in Milwaukee: coffee and Chinese food. It's a slam dunk that with its large apartment-dwelling population, the Brew City's market for Chinese would be immense, with the bar to entry being correspondingly low. More mysterious, in my view, is why specialty coffee has become the service world's Suckistan--particularly in Milwaukee, but to a certain extent in other regions as well. Ninety miles to the south and west lie meccas for caffeinistes and caffeinistas. (I'll be going to one of them this weekend.) One might be forgiven for asking with all the other cool stuff to do in Chicago, why they need to do great coffee too. But so it is.

I'm guessing that the answer to Milwaukee's underachievement lies in some social and cultural dynamic in this town that I'm not keyed into.  From a business perspective, questions come to mind. Are the margins too low? One would think that could be made up for with volume, considering the coffee-inhaling German background so many of us share. Yet never, it seems, has a product been sold more lovelessly than coffee in the "German Athens."  On several occasions, I've heard coffee shop personnel say they don't drink coffee or even heard them ridicule the idea of paying market price for specialty coffee. Nowhere else is there such a gulf between conviction and transaction. No steakhouse would hire a militant vegan as a server, knowing that he or she would occasionally go off the reservation and state "meat is murder," would it?

I really love coffee. My Tassimo brewer and the exceptional new drip brewer I bought for the office are reminding me of that, and have made it fun for me again. I'll drink chalky lattes with a grimace and eat Chinese food even when it tastes of Pine-Sol--as it quite literally did on one occasion. While doing so, I'll dream of a time and place where coffee is given the care, attention and celebration it deserves.

Clear Windows

Increasingly, my views of religious bodies are dovetailing with my views of the US service industry. I don't need to huff and puff on this blog to advocate that both become more nimble and responsive, nor do I need to underscore the urgency of doing so. I believe the hard numbers are so dramatic that these organizations will either adapt or face extinction. Even if we postulate a 10-year delay in Baby Boomer retirement ("until they drop," as a recent AARP survey supposedly found out), the replacements for the relatively well-off Boomers simply aren't there. The conditions that pre-Boomers such as my parents enjoyed, so favorable to wealth-building--early marriage and homeownership, high interest rates on savings, and (at least usually) low gas prices--are vanishing or have already vanished. From early indicators, I must ruefully predict that neck braces will become a common sight among those in charge of religious bodies and those who sell consumer goods and services, resulting from the whiplash they experience from hitting a solid object after 20 to 30 years of boomy momentum.

The only way out, in my view, is a radical change in thinking. These institutions will need to take out the stained glass--the perceptual filters they employ--and gain a clear, sober view of the world. They will have to gain an honest appraisal of what they are doing for the world on a personal and societal level. The white suburban consumerist society will run out of means--if nothing else, human means, as our birth rate is well below replacement levels. What we install in its place is up to us.

For Coffeehouses, There's No Business Like No Business

I believe some local coffeehouses, particularly those on E. Brady St., are better thought of as community centers than businesses. In that light, they seem quirky and endearing. To say that Rochambo is competing with Starbucks sounds as patently absurd as saying that I'm competing with Aaron Rodgers. There's just no intersection between those two worlds. They both exist on Planet Earth, but in entirely different realities. I've overheard Starbucks baristas consistently talking about how slow Starbucks' Brady location is. Basically, Starbucks can plop a store down there just for the hell of it. If the property assessments are as inflated as the rest of the neighborhood, I'd venture to guess that Rochambo and Brewed Cafe are scraping by and maybe a little more. (I have absolutely no information, and please do correct me if I'm wrong.)

Something that occurred to me more than once in last year's political turmoil is this: The standard of living, convenience and amount of leisure time we expect absolutely necessitate large, multinational and megapowerful corporations. The economies and efficiencies of scale and the systems and standardization driven by these corporations are the bedrock of today's American lifestyle. Unfortunately (or not), I don't think there's any way around downsizing our standard-of-living expectations if we want to decrease the wealth, power and influence of large corporations.

I think there should be different tracks of businesses, perhaps given different treatment by the IRS. I'd argue that Rochambo and Brewed Cafe function as community centers and should, if anything, be given block grants or something of that nature to improve their properties. As you can probably guess, I think Starbucks should pay through the wazoo. The ones somewhere in between, such as Stone Creek? Not quite sure.

We need people who can make a good cappuccino behind the espresso bar more than we need good businesspeople there. I can accept the erratic service if I stop thinking of it as a business. In many ways, I have as much in common with most local coffee shop baristas as I have with Aaron Rodgers. I think of myself as a pretty low-key guy, but I have to remember that I entered a serious business environment at a very early age for the tasks I was carrying out. I eat, drink and sleep business--well, not quite, but you catch my drift. It's been important for me to realize and accept that others are not going to be quite like that, and sometimes not at all like that. In the same way, I have to realize that when I walk into a coffeehouse, it is not a business as I understand the term.

The Saturday Afternoon Leading Economic Indicator

You know the world has gone crazy when banks and churches start serving good coffee! Running my Saturday noonday errands, I mused that money--like religion--has now also become a consumer product. At the medium-sized regional bank where I maintain a couple of accounts, Aaron Rodgers is the spokesperson. At the credit union where I maintain my other accounts, members of diversity categories are featured in the stock photography that accompanies any textual message, no matter how brief. (Thankfully, they don't put stock photos on account statements, as mine would no doubt show a Richard Lewis-like figure slapping his forehead.) 

It occurred to me that perhaps a truer indicator of my wealth is how I feel at about this time on a Saturday afternoon. Am I happy that the weekend has arrived? Do I feel like a day of rest is welcome, without feeling overly drained? Do I feel like I gave the work week everything I had? If the answer to these questions is "Yes," I can feel content and comfortable that my week was well lived. This makes my perception of my economic life measurable and internal.

Though it doesn't cause me to walk around with a black cloud over my head, I admit to becoming increasingly concerned about the ability of governments such as Iran's to coerce world events and affect people's lives, even on an individual level. It seems to me that the most effective way to defend ourselves is to tweak our lifestyle a little bit--not in the sense of letting the thugs win, but in the sense of taking away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his like the disproportionate amount of power they wield over global events. It's disturbing to think of the possible repercussions if Iran's leader gets a bee in his bonnet, and perhaps equally disconcerting to think how we arrived at this scenario in the first place.

 

 

Sellin' It

Further to my reflections of last night, I've been thinking about the task and challenge of selling. Whether we work for Starbucks or Widgets-R-Us, we are ultimately in the business of selling an experience to the customer. This is most especially true in our information economy. Incidentally, I think this also applies to those who sell themselves, as it were, on match.com and other dating sites. I think in the amazing and unprecedented--albeit perhaps artificial--boom we had between, say, 1993 and 2001 (can you tell I'm a Bill Clinton fan?) and again between 2003 and 2008, retailers learned that the consumer's money rolled downhill and all they needed to do was stand at the bottom and catch it. 

Retailers now find themselves at the top of that hill, trying to make the money roll upwards. Some are fortunate to serve an affluent niche such as that in Ozaukee or suburban Waukesha County. In terms of pure economic ideology, I have distinct libertarian tendencies; in any event, I'm very much a market economy guy. Yet I find that the retail sector has lost its ability to inspire me. Everything seems to have this air of desperation about it.

In coffeehouses and fast casual restaurants like Panera, for example, the high turnover and behavior of employees often provides less-than-thrilling results. Among the employees who are there, those who seem to be genuinely concerned with serving the customer seem few and far between. In my working life, I've tried to uphold the ideal that yes, of course, you have a great time--but also snap to attention when the customer calls or there's work to be done. No doubt the kids in their early twenties who really shine get snapped up by the higher-end full-service restaurants or are scouted for desk jobs.

I remember well the summer of 1995, when a weekend began with receiving a call from Barnes & Noble stating that I'd been hired for their cafe and, later, saw my first Starbucks experience in Chicago. I recall being caught up in this rapture of being able to prepare and serve Starbucks coffee--which seemed genuinely new, distinctive and exciting--and work in a big-box bookstore environment, where they even stocked imported rock music magazines that had Yes and U2 in them. And we all know how that went. 

 

Editorials: Consumer Fads

Not sure if it's the cassette tape of Celine Dion's Falling into You in my car, but for some reason I was thinking of the American consumer fads of the mid-1990s that touched my early working life. One was Boston Market and the home meal replacement fad. Another was Barnes & Noble and the big box bookselling fad. During my time at these businesses, I learned many valuable lessons from managers who served as friends and mentors to me. I feel regret that the capricious nature of the American consumer may have impacted their careers--though obviously it would have been both for better and for worse. These fads of the 1990s reflected a generous, optimistic view of the US consumer. I wonder if the "take-away" from the decline of these fads has been for the service sector to go into lockdown mode and go after the quick, sure buck. (And I won't lie awake tonight staring at the ceiling while pondering that mystery.)  I guess I would wish that those who devise these concepts would base them more on fundamentals. 

You might have guessed where I'm going with this: I wonder if the cafe aspect of specialty coffee is next. Obviously, Alterra is a strong company, but they have also picked up the Heinemann's mantle--not to mention that they've been infused with a shitload of cash. I predict tough going for others, with perhaps "treading water" being the best outcome to hope for.

Editorials: Television: Arizona Roundup (Part 2)

A thought I had regarding Starbucks is that I am routinely disturbed by their drive-thrus. (Perhaps I should keep in mind that high temperatures here in Arizona average 100 degrees or more in summer.) It seems like the coffee giant takes human connection and turns it into a kind of parody. Similarly--and on a related note--the marketing-to-women juggernaut turns the contemporary female experience and turns it into kind of an absurd parody of itself. I'm glad to have been exposed to so much television (particularly cable television) this long weekend, as I hadn't realized just how ridiculous things had become. A current Fiber One commercial advertises 90-calorie brownies, enjoyed by a model who is slim and trim by Western US standards, much less Milwaukee standards. Regardless of whether women are slim and trim, why shouldn't they be able to eat a brownie without worry?  I think such distorted situations are fueled by a particularly unfortunate combination of ignorance and hyperconformity.

Editorials: The Single-serving Society's War on Your Wallet (Part 3)

As I fly from Milwaukee to Denver, I can’t help but reflect on some of the aspects of my hometown that have been on my mind lately.  Milwaukee is very centered on the economics and dynamics of inequality.  By this, I mean not only incidental matters such as having to pay $1.50 for a cheap cigarillo at midnight, but primarily more intractable inequality. Long-term single people tend to live in dense areas such as Milwaukee’s East Side, where prices are inflated and the bar for quality goods and services is set vastly lower than in the suburbs.

On the inflight television—free to me with the purchase of a Plus ticket—Rachael Ray’s show conveys the promise of a woman who knows her way around the kitchen and the bedroom. I’d always wondered why people watch cooking on television, until the stewardess delivered the earbuds and I could hear the ridiculously innuendo-laden dialog. (Ray praises appetizers as an opportunity to “keep my mouth busy while I wait for the entrée.”) I wouldn’t want Ray as my wife or girlfriend, but can easily imagine the makings of a very fun weekend. Assuming Ray doesn’t hold any deep, dark secrets, though, being married to her (or a woman like her) would represent a kind of financial and sexual security that would likely change my outlook on life vastly.

Successful marriages and other romantic relationships provide security to make major life decisions that are beneficial both to society and the individual. However, these choices transform life into a sort of capital investment that may mean less quick profits for the service industry and other businesses. With a lack of wealth-creating business in places such as Milwaukee, tax revenue is generated by rental properties, bars and nightclubs. Meanwhile, there is a lack of conventional grocery stores. Absurdly, Target is carpet-bombing Miwaukee with advertising that promotes its fresh food selection, when probably 10% of the population lives within one mile of a Target store. In reality, grocery shopping is shifting towards chain drugstores, convenience stores and mini-marts.

As if to prove that God has a great sense of humor, the TV fare on my flight from Denver to Phoenix is Bravo’s “Millionaire Matchmaker.”  No sound this time, but it’s interesting  to watch the display of good manners (I think it’s called acting). I don’t waste a lot of time thinking about what my life would be like if I were a millionaire, but I imagine it would mostly just amplify the good and the bad in me and my life—as my middling income has over the years. But I know there’s no harm in any of us psychologically staking a claim to a significant amount of resources, particularly if we have the work ethic to back it up.