Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

Eating My Words, With Soap in My Mouth

When Starbucks first introduced the pourover option, a dedicated reader pointed out that the pourover coffee served at the S. 27th and W. Oklahoma Starbucks--across the street from where he works--is very poor. Coincidentally, I ended up there today after a Wal-Mart run and can affirm that the pourover I received is the worst I've ever had at any Starbucks. Initally, it tasted like nothing so much as soap, then improved somewhat towards the bottom of the cup.

15 Minutes to Bargains

There's slim pickin's in retail and coffeehouses close to where I live and work. I was very happy to rediscover the Target store on S. Chase Ave. I timed the trip and determined that it takes exactly fifteen minutes. First on tonight's agenda was a Tassimo disc restock--a 12-pack of dark roast discs costs about $6.50. There's also an aisle with different kinds of granola bars and other snack bars at clearance prices. I got an 8-pack of Larabars--which ordinarily are very expensive in stores--for about seven bucks. The deal was clinched when I found half-ounce bottles of eye drops for 99 cents. I go through those like there's no tomorrow, and they usually cost three times as much or even more. Tarzhay is officially my favorite store.

Almost maddeningly, I have stellar credit, but (like almost everyone) could use more bucks in the bank. The Tassimo has been a real boon for me, as it's hard to argue with a 85-cent latte or cappuccino--for so little money, anything less than terrible is good enough. Half my Starbucks soy lattes taste worse, like an indistinguishable goop.

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. 

 

Starbucks: Blonde Roast

I'm sitting at a Starbucks drinking the newly released Blonde Roast. Hard to sum up this lighter brew, other than that it definitely exceeds my expectations and seems almost confoundingly "about the coffee." This E. Ogden Ave. location is a George Webb's in disguise, so it will be interesting to hear (and later, see for myself) how it's going over at other, possibly more connoisseur-oriented stores.

My still unconfident coffee palate tells me that this is mostly Colombian coffee. Others will surely be able to confirm or correct.

Starbucks: Miller's Maxim (or: Tomorrow's the Big Day)

Miller's Maxim: If you're going through the Starbucks drive-thru, you're gettin' a big-ass Frappuccino. Never have I seen any other item traverse the drive-thru windowsill. Tomorrow, with the introduction of Blonde Roast, that may change.

Ozaukee County: Mequon: Mequon Starbucks

I'm at the new Starbucks in Mequon. I'd love to be able to provide photos, but Starbucks communicated to me their policy that interior photos not be taken without the advance permission of the store manager, and I am respecting those wishes. I'm going to take this opportunity to include some general reflections that I have had about Starbucks lately.

Adding to a series of reflections that no doubt will extend through Tuesday's Blonde rollout, I think it's noteworthy that this fundamental shift for Starbucks represents a movement from emphasizing product distinctiveness to emphasizing systems and standardization. How so, you may ask? I sincerely wonder whether the cafe aspect of specialty coffee is a flash in the pan. If people are soon able to set up reasonably fast wi-fi hotspots on their cell phones, I wonder how many independent coffee shops will manage to survive. The architecture of the new Mequon store includes a drive-thru (see my post of several days ago) and reflects an apparent anticipation of less for-here business, which I find regrettable. 

As I grow older and hopefully wiser, I find systems and standardization comforting. For one thing, Starbucks does not have customer service quirks that sometimes seem arbitrary. For example, many independents and even large chain Caribou don't have all drink sizes in both for-here and to-go. Starbucks does. I don't recall ever being told at a Starbucks that my drink order was somehow a mismatch with the cup lineup. In a successful business, the customer's order is never wrong, nor is he or she ever standing in the wrong place (I note that this store's two registers are within two or three feet of each other, so that the customer likely would never have to be told to move to the correct register). At most, the business might tell the customer that it cannot accomodate the customer's wishes as stated, but offer workable alternatives.

Starbucks: The Mermaid Takes off the Makeup

In a marketing move reminiscent of Kiss' 1983 release Lick It Up, Starbucks is expanding its variety by offering product without its "makeup"--the distinctive dark roast. Beginning Tuesday, two light roast varieties, Veranda and Willow Blend, will be available. Arguably, the coffee giant is in a similar position to Kiss in 1983, when the band swam against every current and risked being drowned by every tide. And how would I know? I had the (mis)fortune of being a Kiss fan at the nadir of their popularity. Which looked something like this:

In case you were looking for evidence of my Kiss fandom circa 1983, I submit the following to the court:

East Side/Riverwest: Snapshots: Starbucks (E. Ogden Ave.)

Speaking of speculation, I think someone in high places oughta look into the relationship between Starbucks and match.com ;-) Are you really going to tell me there's no quid pro quo there? That's a lotta vertical integration for folks looking to get horizontal!

Holidays: Snapshots: Starbucks (Third Ward)

Unusually, a couple with small children is here at the Third Ward Starbucks, of all places. I hope to spend more time in family-friendly places in the near future, and hopefully have kids of my own in the not-too-distant future. The Bonnie Raitt Christmas music is getting a little old :-) Nonetheless, I find myself getting into the Christmas spirit for the first time in a few years. It promises to be a good one!

Editorial: Local vs. Chain

I recently enjoyed this cappuccino at the Starbucks location in Whitefish Bay. I thought it would be a great accompaniment to my discussion of national chains versus local businesses. Granted, it's not a representative sample, as it is the only drink I've received at Starbucks with real, honest-to-goodness latte art.

I think as dutiful middle-class citizens, we've been conditioned to persuasion techniques that are questionable at best. We see them on TV and hear them from the pulpit. We use them in our inner dialogue with ourselves and the way we think about others. I'd argue that the argument usually follows similar lines: a more or less fictional place is conjured, and all that the hearer knows is that he or she does not quite fit into it. The hearer's obligation is to make an effort to make this conjured place reality. The trick is that most often, the goal is a moving target--making the pursuit a shell game. As I can testify, if we use this technique on ourselves, we quickly fall into quicksand. The only way to get out of it is to break reality back down to its nuts and bolts. What is the specific logical proposition being presented? What specific course of action am I being asked to take?

At the risk of being snide, I think the local vs. chain debate too often falls into this trap. The conjured image is, perhaps, one in which hipsters and farmers join hands in a blissful, directly traded utopia with no taint from businessmen--and I do particularly mean men--on either side of the counter. The snide part is that I'd suggest that hipsters and farmers have about as much in common as I have with Hugh Hefner. Granted, the hipsters visit the coffee farms, while I've never been to the Playboy Mansion. (But if I ever make it there, I'll be sure to blog about it.)  But I think like so much advertising, the argument conjures a vision without making a specific connection to my world as a middle-aged, middle-class consumer or explaining specifically how I am to apply it to my reality. There's not a logical proposition that convinces me that Starbucks ought to be avoided. Four or five years ago, it would have been a product quality proposition; that proposition no longer exists. I regularly enjoy pourover and machine-brewed drip coffee that is outstanding, and in fact am doing so as I write.