September 15, 2004
Starbucks

Starbucks.  Love ‘em.  I’m just crazy bonkers nuts over the cozy little purveyors of all concoctions caffeinated and yet remain puzzled as to why. 

Starbucks, named for the character in Moby Dick, started with one Seattle coffee house in 1987 and today is almost 5,000 stores strong.  One can only imagine their business plan when starting out.  “Look I know the country is over-run with coffee shops selling latte’s and frap-puccino’ for around a buck and a half.  But we’re going to go nation-wide with tasty cups of caffeinated froth priced at over three bucks.  Don’t even think people will refuse to pay double the going rate for a coffee drink.  They’ll flock to our stores and here’s why.   Our drinks will sound and taste yummier.  Who could say no to a caramel macchiato?  But here’s the really important part, Starbucks won’t have small, medium and large at our coffeeterias but customers will choose from tall, grande and venti.” 

And with this “small is actually tall” philosophy Starbucks has become a daily stop in the lives of Americans from San Diego to Portland, Maine.  It’s hard for me to go twenty four hours without a grande or venti (someone told me venti is Italian for “twenty ounces”} vanilla latte. 

No matter where you visit Starbucks, be it in a Grand Junction supermarket or the heart of New York City, Starbuck employees, called “baristas” which I’m guessing is Italian for “I have my Masters in Art History”, appear to be a relatively happy group.  Of course you’d be excited too if your workday was spent mainlining caffeine.  

Luckily for a Starbucks addict there’s usually a caffeine fix close at hand.  Two mornings ago in Denver at the end of an early morning run along the Cherry Creek path I experienced acute latte withdrawal.  We had been at Invesco Sunday night making sure the Bronco’s got off on the right foot against the Chiefs.  Standing at the corner of 16^th and Larimer I realized within two blocks one could find five Starbucks and most likely all were filled with customers standing in line, breathing the air heavy with the aroma of caffeine, and waiting as patiently as supplicants queuing for Easter communion.  It’s not uncommon in large metropolitan areas to find a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks.  And both locations will have a constant crowd of caffeine consumers. A wag once remarked he didn’t think Starbucks expansion would be complete until a Starbucks was located in the restroom of a Starbucks. 

Not that everyone is as goofy over Starbucks as I.  On the Internet you’ll find “I Hate Starbucks.com”.  One poster whined, “Why does the world complain about Wal-Mart when my Wally World shoes cost less than a Starbucks café mocha?” But while posters on the site kvetch incessantly about Starbuck’s pricing and how the company is, in their mind, a monolithic corporate pig bent on world domination, (and only when you are really aggravated do you equate the problem’s of the world with the price of a cappuccino)  getting their daily caffeine buzz at another purveyor is rarely discussed.      

Just how ingrained has Starbucks become in our national psyche?  Our middle daughter, a Starbuckaholic like her father, starts each weekday dropping her daughter off at pre-school and then heading to work as a Douglas County special education teacher.  But before the pre-school delivery comes a Starbucks stop.  Last Saturday afternoon her two and a half year old ran into the kitchen, stood next to her mom and while pointing at the refrigerator breathlessly asked, “Mommy, a grande milk please”.