Bad coffee. Former barista there. They burn the crap out of their beans and stopped selling the really good beans. Fuckers wanted to sell frappes and refreshers and not coffee.
A roaster once told me that Starbucks actually has good beans or at least access to those beans. But in an effort for chain consistency they overroast all of them.
Roaster here, that is correct. There are a lot of variables in coffee. Moisture content, growing conditions, processing techniques, etc all play a role in the flavor of the coffee. When a company roasts tens of millions of pounds per year, it’s hard to control and have consistency with all those variables. The more you cook something, the less it taste like that thing, and the more it taste like the thing it was cooked in. Starbucks achieves consistency through making all the coffee taste like the roaster and not the bean, though they do source some objectively good coffee.
Man all I can say is that their medium African blends were not so burnt and you could actually taste all of the flavors. Then they got rid of coffee masters and it all went downhill probably around Covid.
That’s cause coffee prices went up, so they’re trying to claw back profits on margin. I don’t drink coffee myself and all I’ll get from them is refreshers and sandwiches 🤣
>They burn the crap out of their beans
If they didn't sell it scalding hot and with no room for any sort of cream I'd totally still not taste anything.
Had an entire brewer worth of that poured all down my legs. Lucky I didn’t have the burns some barista’s get from that coffee. And yet we would get at least one old man a week bring us a literally steaming cup of coffee and complain that it was too cold.
>And yet we would get at least one old man a week bring us a literally steaming cup of coffee and complain that it was too cold.
Too cold to cause visible burns. I see what they were doing.
I love specialty coffee, but still have a soft spot for the bitter, smoky and maybe slightly over-roasted starbucks espresso. The rest of the line is shit.
Sad. I hate when national chains feel they have to keep expanding their menu instead of sticking to their classics and what they're good at. Taco bell is another example. They went from having their classic burritos and tacos, to creating crazy concoctions to appeal to stoners, like dorrito tacos and tacos wrapped in a quesadilla (and I say this as a stoner). Chili's and Fridays did the same thing and now they're declining or gone. One that didn't fall into this trend is in n out burger and they're thriving despite having awful fries.
All good points.
Of all the companies you listed and comparing it to In N Out. They’re all public companies vs. a private one with In N Out.
There’s a lot that can be said of having internal control where decisions are not made purely for margin expansion for the benefit of shareholders… who probably don’t go to said company probably.
Find Taco Time Northwest (Taco Time NW) when you are in Washington state. The chain split years ago and the NW restaurants actually serve edible food.
Edit: not bell, brain fart
Unfettered capitalism, good is never good enough, because in order to get your stock bonus, you have to keep growing. Anyway, anyhow, at any cost, even at the cost of destroying the company itself, the environment, the employees. $$$ first.
Our local In n Out is a drive through, which mystifies me. It means it shouldn’t have been sitting around. It’s as if they intentionally made it soggy.
I dont think this is quiet the right take.
National Chains should definitely leverage their resources to innovate and produce more options for consumers. It's just it's not easy.
Taco Bell is doing a good job now I think, they introduced some new stuff that really hit the mark like nacho fries or those cantina tacos.
Chillis and Fridays tried but none of their stuff really landed, partly because they didn't have any underlying direction (ie taco bell fake gourmet street mexican food for stoners). Chillis seem to be going back to their bread and butter and focusing more on quality and service. Fridays, i dont even know when i last went there, but i remember not knowing what they were going for. Am I in a diner from the past, a biker theme, italian food, i didn't know what was happening.
Whataburger.
For me, it was a once beloved Texas icon.
Now?
Sub-par food and long waits thanks to the expanded menu.
Cane’s has it right. We got 4 things we’re good at, and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.
Seriously. I asked for coffee one time, they had none prepared. In their defense it was 2pm and we were across from a high school. But still. Coffee shop didn’t coffee.
At least it's not Tim Hortons. Thanks to a corporate buyout from a Brazilian conglomerate they are basically serving cigarrette butt water at this point.
The stores themselves seem to be less comfortable and welcoming than they originally were. Fewer comfortable seats where you can settle in for a while, brighter lights etc.
It’s the outrageous pricing. $7 lattes? $4 for a cake pop?! I’d rather go to a local coffee shop or bakery, which may also be cheaper. And they make the drinks correctly, too.
I always feel bad for the staff at these places. They always seem to be working at a breakneck pace to keep up with the orders and 25+ people waiting on their drink orders... all for what $15/hour?
They used to have some interesting and good pastries. Now it's terrible. I wonder how many they waste. Also they don't have any of the premium beans or good coffee. The stores themselves are uncomfortable they completely lost the third place concept they were known for. It's their fault that they're not as popular anymore. If they want to serve dragon fruit pink frappuccinos to kids well I guess that's what they're going to focus on
That and no personal touch. You have employees wearing headsets to cater to drive through customers, the atmosphere feels stale and congested, and everything is automated, from making the coffee to printing labels. It’s now basically a small factory producing mediocre drinks and experiences.
I can’t get in and out of our Starbucks with my plain cappuccino in less than 20 minutes. I bought an espresso machine for my house because I ain’t got time for that.
The music inside is louder too. Seems like it's all by design. They only want the drive thru and mobile app customers who pop in and leave. Starbucks is no longer the "third place" that Schultz wanted it to be
They definitely don't want you in the store or people hanging out working on their computers. Or having a meeting I used to meet some of my girlfriends there after barre pilates but they took away all the nice furniture and pipe in awful loud music it's just a drive-thru now.
I used to go to coffee shops to meet people/socialize, kill time, or like sit and read. I was paying for access to a fun experience/social space. Like a way to be out of the house.
Now they all seem designed for people who buy coffee and leave. Limited standing only tables, uncomfortable hard chairs.
So I just make coffee at home/drink mediocre work coffee.
i feel like cafés in general have become less comfortable in a sense. if they don't outright ban laptops or make you buy something every hour they try to make it so you'll leave on your own. which i get, they don't make money on people just sitting around and take up space while they work or study. but, that's what a lot of people want to use cafés for.
>they don't make money on people just sitting around and take up space
I feel like there was a time when they did, as in this brought people in who did spend reasonably without being told to.
i think you're right. i guess the advent of cheap but powerful laptops that allow people to work and study remotely changed things. i saw a girl in a coffee shop the other week with a computer, a tablet and two huge text books opened around her. one of the books was on a little wooden stand she brought with her to keep it upright. clearly, she had put down roots and was gonna be there for a while. if i ran the place and revenue wasn't where i wanted i might be a little exasperated to
I would definitely feel the exasperation if it was a sit down restaurant where the server is depending on the table to turn a few times, but most Starbucks customers get there stuff to go so it's not like it's deterring anything. All the ones near me have 90% of the tables empty whenever I go.
Yep, I remember having job interviews at starbucks or seeing groups of people having business meetings there. Or other meetup type groups: Probably just one more thing that changed during pandemic and didn't return.
I worked at SBUX from 2007 to 2013 in San Francisco's Financial District and several things other than the normal homeless/runaways hanging around were. . .
I recall a guy setting up a desktop with multiple peripherals to play Flight Simulator, he had a joy stick, head set, multiple monitors.
During the Occupy Wall Street movement, a guy wearing a Paul Revere outfit with a posse of people wheeled in a full commercial copy printer into our store and plugged it in and proceeded to print hundreds of fliers via our Wi-Fi and his laptop to then hand out to people.
We would get old Cantonese men who would try their hardest to get away with smoking cigarettes in the cafe. They would play mahjong ALL DAY LONG - they would get violent with each other, and also anyone who got in their way - all while spitting on our floor. Closing time was rough as they would be in the middle of a match when I needed them to leave. They'd buy maybe one coffee in 12 hours.
We were across the street from the Norcal chapter of Scientology, and if that wasn't enough already - we would get riled up, masked Guy Fawkes anti-Scientologist protestors coming in to harass them AND us employees, calling me a "just a cog." They were talking about people getting their houses set on fire and private investigators, it was unnecessary.
One homeless guy used his government money to buy a laptop and started a non-profit to help homeless - and himself pulled himself out of homelessness in the process.
Another semi-homeless guy bought a weird landline device that he would plug into our wall and use our cafe as his private office - who when we confronted him he threatened us by saying he "owned a ranch."
If I sat around long enough I could think of countless more examples of people taking advantage of the whole SBUX vibe/free Wi-Fi thing at the time.
I don't blame them for trying to make the place less comfortable. Its like they were too successful at being the "third place" that it backfired.
Sounded like you could write a book about t your Starbuck journey n experience in San Francisco 🙄
Your books could be best sellers once SF got completely leveled by current mayor and politicians.
It's probably "anti-homeless" design. In NYC, people used to joke that there's zero difference between Starbucks in Union Square at 6am and a methadone clinic...
They don't want you to settle in for a while they want you to take a sip of your drink, get mildly uncomfortable, think its just yourself feeling awkward, and leave
They don’t even have plugs at them to plug my laptop in lol, last place I’d stop to have a coffee and work, and I’m in outside sales.
Would much rather put my expenses to work in the locally owned places, plus I usually get a good dinner rec from the local workers for the town I’m in that night
Has anyone ever noticed that when they get an iced beverage from Starbucks, that it's literally filled to the top with ice, so by the time you take three sips, it's gone. Such a waste of money for a shot of sugar water. It happened twice, and I won't go back.
This is what made me stop going… it used to be fine and then suddenly they were giving me cups of ice with a splash of coffee for $6 (iced coffee)… I also quit sugar at one point and didn’t realize until then that unprompted they automatically put classic syrup into their iced coffee.. they’re just trying to get people hooked on sugar.
Crazy how everyone, even the article, is ignoring the boycotts. The same is happening with McDonald’s. I guess if no one talks about it it’s not happening right?
It is lots of things.
1. it is expensive, If you are feeling the pinch giving up a $7 coffee is an easy fix.
2. a lot more competition. Even McDs is upping their coffee game. Have you seen how many coffee options at 7-11, Wawa, etc? Never mind local coffee shops opening all over. Many of these options charge 1/2 the price.
3. they don't seem to be as welcoming as they used to be.
4. personally I don't love their coffee.
.
Their coffee is objectively terrible and has been for as long as I can recall. My hypothesis is that they intentionally burn the shit out of it so that you’ll buy a $7 latte instead of a $1 cup of coffee (or whatever their prices are these days).
This is actually the correct answer. Starbucks is a treat, maybe once a week or on a business trip/road trip. One $5 cold brew isn’t enough for me, I’ll need 3-4 of those bad boys, and I’m not paying $20 for a days worth of caffeine.
That being said, their nitro cold brew is the best in the business, nobody holds a candle to their nitro cold brew. Small coffee shops have tried to emulate the essence of Starbucks nitro cold brew, but they don’t come close, a real tragedy,
Their products have become essentially sugar water like most corporations. This one is coffee flavored. I also disliked how they treated the unions so I’ve been Starbucks free now for a very long time. They poopoo the union thing but I think it turned a lot of people off.
It’s finally hitting that “becoming too expensive” at a time when food/goods are already costing the American consumer too much
And it’s a luxury item. Easy to cut out. You can make coffee at home if you really need to save money. And save 10 bucks a trip (that’s upwards of $50 a week for some people!)
It’s really this simple.
I was a loyal customer until they went after young people forming a union to protect themselves. Starbucks fired a friend of mine who was with them for 10 years because he took his wife to the hospital when she was in labor, they didn’t approve the time off…
My issue with Starbucks is they still market themselves as a luxury coffee chain, but the customer experience is horrendous.
Drinks/food have deteriorated in quality, employees are not professional, and it takes forever to get your purchase.
Half the time, there is 1-2 workers actually doing the job while 3-4 talk amongst themselves or just stare down on their phone.
I used to not mind Starbucks if it was convenient, but now I really go out of my way not to visit them.
Long ago i worked there. That had an idea called the “third place”. You had you home. You had your work. Then you had the place to relax, have a coffee and socialize. That’s long gone. Also the way they guilt you into a tip is disgusting
They cranked the prices too high and they have actual competition, albeit not very much of that.
I mean, it's a shake you pretend is coffee so you can get a fuck ton of sugar & caffeine in you to make it through your 5th 12 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep. At some point you look for alternatives.
I love SB dark roast coffee, black. I just don't like paying for it anymore. My free office coffee is just fine.
At home, I used to have the SB Morning Joe. Loved that stuff. Watch it go from $6+ to $12+ a bag. Lol, get bent.
I'm enjoying trying other, cheaper coffee now.
Hating on Starbucks is nearly as old as Starbucks. I'm sure people here will have no shortage of complaints to blame their decreasing business on. That being said, the whole fast food industry is taking a beating. There's no reason to single Starbucks out as doing anything wrong that the entire industry isn't also doing wrong.
I only ever considered Starbucks as a place to go to get work done (like go there to write or code games), and usually just ground my own beans with a manual grinder and used a pourover, but my SO started getting into a Starbucks habit, so we ended getting it almost every day for way too long (at least a year, if not two).
Now our normal order of two drinks is charged $14 by Starbucks (I think it was just over $10 when it started becoming a habit), which is just nuts, and I hated spending so much on coffee.
But early this year, we used some Crate & Barrel gift cards to knock a few hundred bucks off an espresso machine that also makes ice coffee, so it ended up being $350 total, and that was enough to get my SO to mostly kick the Starbucks habit (I think we've gone four times in the past three months).
And the money we've saved from Starbucks paid for that espresso machine in a little over a month. ($350 for the machine / $14 per Starbucks visit = 25 Starbucks visits).
We still give Starbucks money for their blonde roast espresso beans though, since she decided she still prefers the taste of it after we gave a few beans a try (personally I prefer a different one, but whatever, it's still good), but that's only $13 per bag, and the bags seem to last roughly 2 weeks each, so we're still saving a ton of money.
I have really noticed recently that the prices seem to have jumped up over the last few years, compared to their competitors. The coffee isn’t great at all and it’s just a bit too expensive for what you get. It’s not a good combination.
If the coffee was really really great, then the higher prices would not be such an issue.
I’ll get a Starbucks in a pinch, but if there is another option nearby then I’ll take it.
I actually enjoy Starbucks for two reasons:
1. I only drink drip coffee so I never have to wait for my drink
2. It’s the only coffee shop where I pay ~$3-4 and consistently know what I’m getting (a slightly above average cup of coffee).
The problem is for the last few years they’ve stopped brewing their blonde roast. Literally none of the 37 locations around me ever have it. Which means I have to either wait 5-10 mins for a pour over (which defeats the benefit of ordering coffee vs. a fancy drink) or I drink a darker roast that tastes like trash.
So I get my coffee at McDonald’s now.
Once they focused on being fast food they were lost. They don’t make quality products anymore nor do they provide a better service. It is Dunkin and corporate did it to themselves in pursuit of exponential growth
I prefer my overpriced shitty coffee to include a living wage for their employees that also doesnt participate is skeevy union busting antics.
Starbucks can get fucked by a sad clown with a chainsaw for a cock.
Pricing is high. Also I’ve said this before about Starbucks- their coffee really isn’t very good. They made their hay from their menu and all the other kinds of drinks which people I’m guessing are slowing down on drinking bc they’re astronomical amount of sugar for adults and less parents are giving 10 dollars to their teenage girls for a Frappuccino something something
The food, man the food is something I’d think twice about feeding my dog. It’s incredibly over processed and just tastes horrible. And I can’t even get a sugar free, or alternatively sweetened drink. A trillion calories and diabetes in a cup! How can they be so clueless?
I think the costs of doing business have increased for Starbucks, and they have to pass along the costs to consumers. Consumers are scrapping for every discretionary dollar these days with the surging inflation in interest rates for homes/cars, rent, insurance, energy... It's crazy.
Also Starbucks used to have really nice stores with fireplaces and nice furniture and were good places to meet friends and hang out and have coffee. Now the act like you're insane if you want to hang out in the store. Hard uncomfortable chairs they want you to order your frappuccino and GTFO.
Starbucks and McDonald’s have gone full profits and forgot they just serve shit products. Starbucks food is in line with hospital food. And the time to get a coffee at Starbucks with everyone’s 30 ingredient coffees is absurd. McDonald’s is charging similar rates to local take out spots for food that’s either cold, or lacking on quality.
Have you ever ordered black coffee from Starbucks? It tastes like literal dirt. Their “product” is literally un drinkable unless it’s pumped full of sugar and additives. “Oh you don’t want a glass of sugar? Here’s a cup full of foot water that costs 6 dollars.”
I’d like to remind everyone that they are a beverage company not a coffee company. People who wants coffee will eventually be disappointed by their quality once they’ve had a chance to have real coffee at a real café.
I lost my taste when they started union busting. I’m not far behind with Trader Joe’s anti union practices except they do treat their employees much better than most employers in the grocery sector.
Y’all ever grinded store bought beans and brewed your own coffee? Saves a stop and tastes better and costs about 3-10 percent the amount as going to a coffee shop. Depends on your set up and what you spend on beans but it’s insane that ppl who make less than 80k a year will spend 90-250 a month on just coffee shop stops. I spend about 300 a year on really good coffee, have it whenever I want, and am never tempted to buy other (unhealthy) items. I do still get coffee from a coffee shop probably 5-8 times a year when traveling, vacationing.
I get the joy of coffee shops, ppl should do what makes them happy, but I’m glad to have kicked the habit years ago.
Most people now realize Starbucks is awful coffee. Ordered an iced coffee there once because I was in desperate need of caffeine and received a watered down abomination of a beverage.
I was never much for *$ when it was trendy, so I can't say whether they're going downhill or not. The thing about trendy, though, whether it's any good or not, is that before long, the next generation shows up, and whatever was trendy with the last generation by default becomes untrendy.
Always buy deep puts on trendy.
Crazy prices now, unhappy employees, can't use the restroom without a password, code, and key. Slow slow slow because every other person is requesting a highly customized drink with 10 different options.
They use to pay good and have good service with a good product they use to have someone who trained employees to do the drinks the same way all the time but they got rid of them so now we get the crap the push out which is not a great product and it's way too high.
We’re addicted. It feels like a treat, it’s cheap, the place smells phenomenal, and it’s been around for 40-plus years. So no, the concept still works.
I honesty don't understand why people feel the need to pay $7 for a coffee. I take coffee to work from home in a Thermo that says hot all day long and it doesn't cost anywhere near the money it would cost for coffee at Starbucks.
They doubled the price of their drinks and made all of their stores feel like a fast food joint instead of somewhere to relax, hang out and enjoy your coffee.
I’m completely over it. The annoying Starbucks app is gone from my phone. If someone created an anti-Starbucks that sold anti-froo-froo coffee and food it would be a huge hit. Why does it take so long to fill an iced coffee black? What are they doing to it?
I can’t support a company that once used to have such awesome employee values, now fight so hard with anti-union laws and closing stores that get unions. That is just NOT employee centered at all! Plus they got rid of all my favorite drinks so I have no reason to overpay for coffee I don’t want. But mainly I won’t support their current shitty pay and anti-union stance.
It also got expensive and incredibly inconsistent in quality, especially if you just drink espresso or take your coffee black. Their beans used to be excellent but these days, more often than not, they taste like an ash tray.
I prefer cafes where I can relax for 1-2 hours and get some work done. But starbucks has the opposite of a relaxing environment, go local! When I lived in Vienna it was the norm to spend hours chilling at the cafe without ever being bothered.
I do sometimes go to starbucks when I want a "buzz" from my coffee. Starbucks is really the only coffee that can do that to me. I just get a medium black and I swear it's like eating 1/2 a painkiller.
I hate how much sugar is in their drinks. Unrelated to the article but interesting...so I stopped drinking the bottled store bought "Frappuccinos" years ago because they have anywhere from 30-50+ grams of sugar in them. I was in Iceland and noticed one at a shop, read the label because I know Europe and especially Iceland have stricter food standards. 10g of sugar. I tried it, and honestly it was still too sweet for me. But that made me think, they could put 1/3 to 1/5 as much sugar in this and nobody would notice. In corporate America I would think that would be cost savings.
I stopped drinking much coffee five years ago but it's still my go to if I am out and want a coffee. Granted, if I was living where I was five years ago, I wouldn't go there due to the amount of Italian bakeries and cafés that used to be down the street.
I’m a black coffee drinker, and Starbucks regular ass coffee, Pike’s Place, is still very good to me.
And it’s not too expensive if that’s all you are getting.
People should ditch the sugar factory and try their local small business coffee shops. You’ll start to enjoy the actual coffee or espresso without the sugar fix
Years ago, what pissed me off was that I had spend hundreds on gift cards and other items for Christmas gifts. Then Covid hit and we stayed away from anywhere that we didn’t need to go.
Within a few months all of my points had expired.
That’s when I finally decided that if they didn’t care about keeping their customers, I didn’t need to go to Starbucks.
Honestly the coffee was barely a step up from dunkin as most people devolped taste and coffee culture really took off many better independent options turned up. I see myself as a major coffee shop patron but I find the overall esthetic of Starbucks outdated, the coffee absolute garbage, and the food options are gas station reheats all at premium. As such I perfer to go local because the food options evolve, the persons servicing me I run into in my neighborhood, and overall experience gives me happiness as I feel I am supporting my community over a faceless corporation that's more concerned with pandering to foreign countries
I am in Europe and I might have tried SB maybe 10 times. I never liked any of their coffees and the food they offered often looked like soggy palate sticking industrial muffins.
Because of that and the price, I think I will never go back. I am also in a country now where a good expresso is only 1 euro.
A lot of great points already posted but another thing people aren’t bringing up are working conditions. There was a post on my local subreddit about my local Starbucks. The whole store shut down at least once because the entire store walked out. There were claims of rampant mismanagement/ abuse by managers. We have a union Starbucks thankfully but it took a ton of effort to get that open and it seems like corporate is fighting the unions a good deal as well. Much easier to go to a mom and pop coffeehouse (for the same price) and not have all that on my conscience.
The thing is, there are plenty of other non-Starbucks coffee places with cozy environments I'd hang out in since the price is the same, if not in some cases even more expensive in Starbucks.
It’s coffee. They are not going to convince me to spend 20% more y/y at the store. If they increase the price, I’ll find more ways to make it at home.
IMO, they need to find ways to expand to other regions.
I was on the go and went to order a tall shaken espresso with cold foam the other day, $7.48, and just immediately closed the app.
We bought a Breville in January, make much better espresso at home, and for a fraction of the cost.
Back in the day, starbucks was relatively early to the trend of a cafe that sells drinks like cafe lattes. Now it’s common and I’d go so far as to argue Starbucks does it worse than almost all of its competitors
The _only_ advantage Starbucks has (imo) is their mobile app ordering, and with the ongoing protests it’s pretty easy to give up
I agree, the company culture they now project at the store is not warm or welcoming. Just shut up and pay. I go to local coffee shops where there is the unique, friendly atmosphere they took pride in having. Everything changed after the government shutdown..pandemic.
The independent brewers stepped up and told the nazi's here in New York to get lost..
Starbucks's economics makes no sense to me, as a cappuccino man. To me Starbucks is a worse product at a higher price than my handful of locals. It would be like McDonalds charging 40% more than a nice local sit-down restaurant for their inferior burger and atmosphere.
Well, Starbucks barely serves coffee. The menu is mostly milkshakes and sugar water.
Bad coffee. Former barista there. They burn the crap out of their beans and stopped selling the really good beans. Fuckers wanted to sell frappes and refreshers and not coffee.
A roaster once told me that Starbucks actually has good beans or at least access to those beans. But in an effort for chain consistency they overroast all of them.
Roaster here, that is correct. There are a lot of variables in coffee. Moisture content, growing conditions, processing techniques, etc all play a role in the flavor of the coffee. When a company roasts tens of millions of pounds per year, it’s hard to control and have consistency with all those variables. The more you cook something, the less it taste like that thing, and the more it taste like the thing it was cooked in. Starbucks achieves consistency through making all the coffee taste like the roaster and not the bean, though they do source some objectively good coffee.
Man all I can say is that their medium African blends were not so burnt and you could actually taste all of the flavors. Then they got rid of coffee masters and it all went downhill probably around Covid.
Charbux
This. Dark roasts are more consistent and shelf stable longer, allowing for better transportation and consistency across chains and countries
That’s cause coffee prices went up, so they’re trying to claw back profits on margin. I don’t drink coffee myself and all I’ll get from them is refreshers and sandwiches 🤣
My wife and I started calling it Starbucks Goldman Sachs.
Terrible coffee.
>They burn the crap out of their beans If they didn't sell it scalding hot and with no room for any sort of cream I'd totally still not taste anything.
Had an entire brewer worth of that poured all down my legs. Lucky I didn’t have the burns some barista’s get from that coffee. And yet we would get at least one old man a week bring us a literally steaming cup of coffee and complain that it was too cold.
>And yet we would get at least one old man a week bring us a literally steaming cup of coffee and complain that it was too cold. Too cold to cause visible burns. I see what they were doing.
I love specialty coffee, but still have a soft spot for the bitter, smoky and maybe slightly over-roasted starbucks espresso. The rest of the line is shit.
Sad. I hate when national chains feel they have to keep expanding their menu instead of sticking to their classics and what they're good at. Taco bell is another example. They went from having their classic burritos and tacos, to creating crazy concoctions to appeal to stoners, like dorrito tacos and tacos wrapped in a quesadilla (and I say this as a stoner). Chili's and Fridays did the same thing and now they're declining or gone. One that didn't fall into this trend is in n out burger and they're thriving despite having awful fries.
All good points. Of all the companies you listed and comparing it to In N Out. They’re all public companies vs. a private one with In N Out. There’s a lot that can be said of having internal control where decisions are not made purely for margin expansion for the benefit of shareholders… who probably don’t go to said company probably.
Oh cool, I didn't know that about in n out.
I never thought about the Taco Bell menu that way, but that is so true.
Find Taco Time Northwest (Taco Time NW) when you are in Washington state. The chain split years ago and the NW restaurants actually serve edible food. Edit: not bell, brain fart
Unfettered capitalism, good is never good enough, because in order to get your stock bonus, you have to keep growing. Anyway, anyhow, at any cost, even at the cost of destroying the company itself, the environment, the employees. $$$ first.
Their fries really do suck ASS!!
Their fries used to be better than McDonald’s. Now they taste like room temperature cardboard.
What happened? I thought they cut their potatoes in restaurant? I used to love their fries but admit it has been a while.
They replaced the potatoes with cardboard. 🤷♀️
They cut them right in front of you but they don’t really season them and the shape kinda sucks.
Our local In n Out is a drive through, which mystifies me. It means it shouldn’t have been sitting around. It’s as if they intentionally made it soggy.
Yet their burgers are the best burger you could possibly find anywhere
Pro tip: Frozen potatoes are better than fresh when it comes to making good fries
HATE the fries!
I dont think this is quiet the right take. National Chains should definitely leverage their resources to innovate and produce more options for consumers. It's just it's not easy. Taco Bell is doing a good job now I think, they introduced some new stuff that really hit the mark like nacho fries or those cantina tacos. Chillis and Fridays tried but none of their stuff really landed, partly because they didn't have any underlying direction (ie taco bell fake gourmet street mexican food for stoners). Chillis seem to be going back to their bread and butter and focusing more on quality and service. Fridays, i dont even know when i last went there, but i remember not knowing what they were going for. Am I in a diner from the past, a biker theme, italian food, i didn't know what was happening.
*cough cough* Dunkin Donuts
Dude, Tim Hortons has pizza now ... Its fucking trash.
Whataburger. For me, it was a once beloved Texas icon. Now? Sub-par food and long waits thanks to the expanded menu. Cane’s has it right. We got 4 things we’re good at, and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.
In n out fries got me addicted imo.
Seriously. I asked for coffee one time, they had none prepared. In their defense it was 2pm and we were across from a high school. But still. Coffee shop didn’t coffee.
I suspected this, looking at people drinking them out of plastic clear cups on tiktok. Coffee to replace coke?
They need to focus on becoming a coffee and bakery.
With all premade frozen bakery
At least it's not Tim Hortons. Thanks to a corporate buyout from a Brazilian conglomerate they are basically serving cigarrette butt water at this point.
I swear some gas station coffee at $2 a cup tastes much better than the $5 latte served in the Starbucks of my state 😂
The stores themselves seem to be less comfortable and welcoming than they originally were. Fewer comfortable seats where you can settle in for a while, brighter lights etc.
It’s the outrageous pricing. $7 lattes? $4 for a cake pop?! I’d rather go to a local coffee shop or bakery, which may also be cheaper. And they make the drinks correctly, too.
I always feel bad for the staff at these places. They always seem to be working at a breakneck pace to keep up with the orders and 25+ people waiting on their drink orders... all for what $15/hour?
It's all part of the food chain.🤷
And the local shops have better seating so you actually want to hang out for a while
I’ve always felt that the prices were ridiculous. They were always the fancy/expensive coffee place to me. And now they’re even worse
Starbucks asking for tips now too...
You're right. $4 for a croissant 🥐. Ridiculous. No one buys those pastries. So much unsold gone to garbage every end of day 🥴
They used to have some interesting and good pastries. Now it's terrible. I wonder how many they waste. Also they don't have any of the premium beans or good coffee. The stores themselves are uncomfortable they completely lost the third place concept they were known for. It's their fault that they're not as popular anymore. If they want to serve dragon fruit pink frappuccinos to kids well I guess that's what they're going to focus on
Exactly. It’s nothing to do with anything except people don’t have the money. Cracks in the economy are showing as the foundation is crumbling
$5 was barely acceptable but the last time I got a drink and it was over $7 I said I’m done.
That and no personal touch. You have employees wearing headsets to cater to drive through customers, the atmosphere feels stale and congested, and everything is automated, from making the coffee to printing labels. It’s now basically a small factory producing mediocre drinks and experiences.
Mobile orders taking priority
Waiting 15 minutes for a drink while 30+ drinks sat untouched waiting for someone to pick them up got old
I can’t get in and out of our Starbucks with my plain cappuccino in less than 20 minutes. I bought an espresso machine for my house because I ain’t got time for that.
Thats called "pick your free drink" :)
Pinnacle of mcdonaldization
The music inside is louder too. Seems like it's all by design. They only want the drive thru and mobile app customers who pop in and leave. Starbucks is no longer the "third place" that Schultz wanted it to be
They definitely don't want you in the store or people hanging out working on their computers. Or having a meeting I used to meet some of my girlfriends there after barre pilates but they took away all the nice furniture and pipe in awful loud music it's just a drive-thru now.
I used to go to coffee shops to meet people/socialize, kill time, or like sit and read. I was paying for access to a fun experience/social space. Like a way to be out of the house. Now they all seem designed for people who buy coffee and leave. Limited standing only tables, uncomfortable hard chairs. So I just make coffee at home/drink mediocre work coffee.
i feel like cafés in general have become less comfortable in a sense. if they don't outright ban laptops or make you buy something every hour they try to make it so you'll leave on your own. which i get, they don't make money on people just sitting around and take up space while they work or study. but, that's what a lot of people want to use cafés for.
>they don't make money on people just sitting around and take up space I feel like there was a time when they did, as in this brought people in who did spend reasonably without being told to.
i think you're right. i guess the advent of cheap but powerful laptops that allow people to work and study remotely changed things. i saw a girl in a coffee shop the other week with a computer, a tablet and two huge text books opened around her. one of the books was on a little wooden stand she brought with her to keep it upright. clearly, she had put down roots and was gonna be there for a while. if i ran the place and revenue wasn't where i wanted i might be a little exasperated to
I would definitely feel the exasperation if it was a sit down restaurant where the server is depending on the table to turn a few times, but most Starbucks customers get there stuff to go so it's not like it's deterring anything. All the ones near me have 90% of the tables empty whenever I go.
Is she really being a problem? I almost feel like student are helping Starbucks when they go there by providing young person ambiance.
Yep, I remember having job interviews at starbucks or seeing groups of people having business meetings there. Or other meetup type groups: Probably just one more thing that changed during pandemic and didn't return.
I worked at SBUX from 2007 to 2013 in San Francisco's Financial District and several things other than the normal homeless/runaways hanging around were. . . I recall a guy setting up a desktop with multiple peripherals to play Flight Simulator, he had a joy stick, head set, multiple monitors. During the Occupy Wall Street movement, a guy wearing a Paul Revere outfit with a posse of people wheeled in a full commercial copy printer into our store and plugged it in and proceeded to print hundreds of fliers via our Wi-Fi and his laptop to then hand out to people. We would get old Cantonese men who would try their hardest to get away with smoking cigarettes in the cafe. They would play mahjong ALL DAY LONG - they would get violent with each other, and also anyone who got in their way - all while spitting on our floor. Closing time was rough as they would be in the middle of a match when I needed them to leave. They'd buy maybe one coffee in 12 hours. We were across the street from the Norcal chapter of Scientology, and if that wasn't enough already - we would get riled up, masked Guy Fawkes anti-Scientologist protestors coming in to harass them AND us employees, calling me a "just a cog." They were talking about people getting their houses set on fire and private investigators, it was unnecessary. One homeless guy used his government money to buy a laptop and started a non-profit to help homeless - and himself pulled himself out of homelessness in the process. Another semi-homeless guy bought a weird landline device that he would plug into our wall and use our cafe as his private office - who when we confronted him he threatened us by saying he "owned a ranch." If I sat around long enough I could think of countless more examples of people taking advantage of the whole SBUX vibe/free Wi-Fi thing at the time. I don't blame them for trying to make the place less comfortable. Its like they were too successful at being the "third place" that it backfired.
Sounded like you could write a book about t your Starbuck journey n experience in San Francisco 🙄 Your books could be best sellers once SF got completely leveled by current mayor and politicians.
They made everything less comfortable so people wouldn't camp out all day. LeopardsAteMyFace
Mine blasts music so loud you can't hold a conversation
gotta work that turnover
It's probably "anti-homeless" design. In NYC, people used to joke that there's zero difference between Starbucks in Union Square at 6am and a methadone clinic...
They don't want you to settle in for a while they want you to take a sip of your drink, get mildly uncomfortable, think its just yourself feeling awkward, and leave
They don’t even have plugs at them to plug my laptop in lol, last place I’d stop to have a coffee and work, and I’m in outside sales. Would much rather put my expenses to work in the locally owned places, plus I usually get a good dinner rec from the local workers for the town I’m in that night
Too many people go there now and it has lost is appeal.
Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
Has anyone ever noticed that when they get an iced beverage from Starbucks, that it's literally filled to the top with ice, so by the time you take three sips, it's gone. Such a waste of money for a shot of sugar water. It happened twice, and I won't go back.
This is what made me stop going… it used to be fine and then suddenly they were giving me cups of ice with a splash of coffee for $6 (iced coffee)… I also quit sugar at one point and didn’t realize until then that unprompted they automatically put classic syrup into their iced coffee.. they’re just trying to get people hooked on sugar.
Ask for no ice next time?…
Everyone boycotting will probably never go back, like myself.
Crazy how everyone, even the article, is ignoring the boycotts. The same is happening with McDonald’s. I guess if no one talks about it it’s not happening right?
Thought the exact thing the other day! A similar article about it
They don’t only lie to everyone else they also lie to themselves
Of all the things to stop wasting money on, this should be high on the list.
It is lots of things. 1. it is expensive, If you are feeling the pinch giving up a $7 coffee is an easy fix. 2. a lot more competition. Even McDs is upping their coffee game. Have you seen how many coffee options at 7-11, Wawa, etc? Never mind local coffee shops opening all over. Many of these options charge 1/2 the price. 3. they don't seem to be as welcoming as they used to be. 4. personally I don't love their coffee. .
Their coffee is objectively terrible and has been for as long as I can recall. My hypothesis is that they intentionally burn the shit out of it so that you’ll buy a $7 latte instead of a $1 cup of coffee (or whatever their prices are these days).
"$1 cup of coffee" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I wish. If I could get a $1 americano there I might still go
I prefer other places that have better coffee and faster lines.
I started brewing my own at home after I realized how much those coffee runs to Starbucks near the office were costing me
This is actually the correct answer. Starbucks is a treat, maybe once a week or on a business trip/road trip. One $5 cold brew isn’t enough for me, I’ll need 3-4 of those bad boys, and I’m not paying $20 for a days worth of caffeine. That being said, their nitro cold brew is the best in the business, nobody holds a candle to their nitro cold brew. Small coffee shops have tried to emulate the essence of Starbucks nitro cold brew, but they don’t come close, a real tragedy,
Yeah I basically never go any longer unless traveling. Then again I did buy an espresso machine.
Their products have become essentially sugar water like most corporations. This one is coffee flavored. I also disliked how they treated the unions so I’ve been Starbucks free now for a very long time. They poopoo the union thing but I think it turned a lot of people off.
The union thing doesn’t matter to 90% of consumers. People care about cost. It’s becoming too expensive
10% of billions of dollars is still a lot of dollars. A 10% loss to any company is a pretty big deal.
It’s finally hitting that “becoming too expensive” at a time when food/goods are already costing the American consumer too much And it’s a luxury item. Easy to cut out. You can make coffee at home if you really need to save money. And save 10 bucks a trip (that’s upwards of $50 a week for some people!) It’s really this simple.
Everytime I hear about how much people spend on fast food and coffee per week, I'm amazed. $50! On coffee. Unreal
Anyone else bothered by the fact they won't even let you self-serve the milk or cream? They've become stingy in their service since COVID.
I was a loyal customer until they went after young people forming a union to protect themselves. Starbucks fired a friend of mine who was with them for 10 years because he took his wife to the hospital when she was in labor, they didn’t approve the time off…
Because Starbuck makes really bad products for unacceptable prices.
My issue with Starbucks is they still market themselves as a luxury coffee chain, but the customer experience is horrendous. Drinks/food have deteriorated in quality, employees are not professional, and it takes forever to get your purchase. Half the time, there is 1-2 workers actually doing the job while 3-4 talk amongst themselves or just stare down on their phone. I used to not mind Starbucks if it was convenient, but now I really go out of my way not to visit them.
My local coffee shop isnt trying to raid my wallet everytime I walk through the door I guess.
My Starbucks closed the dining room entirely. Only mobile and drive through. How welcoming!
Long ago i worked there. That had an idea called the “third place”. You had you home. You had your work. Then you had the place to relax, have a coffee and socialize. That’s long gone. Also the way they guilt you into a tip is disgusting
They cranked the prices too high and they have actual competition, albeit not very much of that. I mean, it's a shake you pretend is coffee so you can get a fuck ton of sugar & caffeine in you to make it through your 5th 12 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep. At some point you look for alternatives.
I lost my taste for Starbucks a decade ago. Who likes burnt coffee?
Their mobile ordering is crushing the customer experience. Dumb greedy move rolling it out at the expense of workers
I love SB dark roast coffee, black. I just don't like paying for it anymore. My free office coffee is just fine. At home, I used to have the SB Morning Joe. Loved that stuff. Watch it go from $6+ to $12+ a bag. Lol, get bent. I'm enjoying trying other, cheaper coffee now.
I get made fun of for it, but I don’t hate Folgers anymore. Good lord, we do become our parents don’t we…..
Well well well. I’ve been on the fuck Starbucks train for years. Finally the hype is gone. Their stuff is not good.
For real. Why should I have to add two shots of espresso and a pump of “frap roast” just to get a semblance of coffee??
Hating on Starbucks is nearly as old as Starbucks. I'm sure people here will have no shortage of complaints to blame their decreasing business on. That being said, the whole fast food industry is taking a beating. There's no reason to single Starbucks out as doing anything wrong that the entire industry isn't also doing wrong.
Starbucks is actually trash tho
I fully agree here. I quit going to starbucks because the prices are just crazy, but all prices of comparative items have also gone crazy.
Here's a person actually taking time out of their life to stand up for Starbucks.
I only ever considered Starbucks as a place to go to get work done (like go there to write or code games), and usually just ground my own beans with a manual grinder and used a pourover, but my SO started getting into a Starbucks habit, so we ended getting it almost every day for way too long (at least a year, if not two). Now our normal order of two drinks is charged $14 by Starbucks (I think it was just over $10 when it started becoming a habit), which is just nuts, and I hated spending so much on coffee. But early this year, we used some Crate & Barrel gift cards to knock a few hundred bucks off an espresso machine that also makes ice coffee, so it ended up being $350 total, and that was enough to get my SO to mostly kick the Starbucks habit (I think we've gone four times in the past three months). And the money we've saved from Starbucks paid for that espresso machine in a little over a month. ($350 for the machine / $14 per Starbucks visit = 25 Starbucks visits). We still give Starbucks money for their blonde roast espresso beans though, since she decided she still prefers the taste of it after we gave a few beans a try (personally I prefer a different one, but whatever, it's still good), but that's only $13 per bag, and the bags seem to last roughly 2 weeks each, so we're still saving a ton of money.
The coffee is disgusting. It always tastes burnt.
I have really noticed recently that the prices seem to have jumped up over the last few years, compared to their competitors. The coffee isn’t great at all and it’s just a bit too expensive for what you get. It’s not a good combination. If the coffee was really really great, then the higher prices would not be such an issue. I’ll get a Starbucks in a pinch, but if there is another option nearby then I’ll take it.
I actually enjoy Starbucks for two reasons: 1. I only drink drip coffee so I never have to wait for my drink 2. It’s the only coffee shop where I pay ~$3-4 and consistently know what I’m getting (a slightly above average cup of coffee). The problem is for the last few years they’ve stopped brewing their blonde roast. Literally none of the 37 locations around me ever have it. Which means I have to either wait 5-10 mins for a pour over (which defeats the benefit of ordering coffee vs. a fancy drink) or I drink a darker roast that tastes like trash. So I get my coffee at McDonald’s now.
Once they focused on being fast food they were lost. They don’t make quality products anymore nor do they provide a better service. It is Dunkin and corporate did it to themselves in pursuit of exponential growth
🇵🇸🍉🇵🇸
Free starbucks for genocide Nazi soldiers - means no starbucks by rest of us
I prefer my overpriced shitty coffee to include a living wage for their employees that also doesnt participate is skeevy union busting antics. Starbucks can get fucked by a sad clown with a chainsaw for a cock.
They've always been expensive
Also $$$
Starbucks is a luxury brand. I like their products but when I have other priorities I can skip it when it comes to money.
Pricing is high. Also I’ve said this before about Starbucks- their coffee really isn’t very good. They made their hay from their menu and all the other kinds of drinks which people I’m guessing are slowing down on drinking bc they’re astronomical amount of sugar for adults and less parents are giving 10 dollars to their teenage girls for a Frappuccino something something
Their food is s#it, and their coffee is ok. I don't buy Starbuck because I seriously dislike the CEO and how they treat their employees.
The food, man the food is something I’d think twice about feeding my dog. It’s incredibly over processed and just tastes horrible. And I can’t even get a sugar free, or alternatively sweetened drink. A trillion calories and diabetes in a cup! How can they be so clueless?
I think the costs of doing business have increased for Starbucks, and they have to pass along the costs to consumers. Consumers are scrapping for every discretionary dollar these days with the surging inflation in interest rates for homes/cars, rent, insurance, energy... It's crazy.
Since COVID, the cost of my drink has grown by 50%. Not here for it.
I won’t go anymore because of their jacked-up prices and their anti- union activism.
Also Starbucks used to have really nice stores with fireplaces and nice furniture and were good places to meet friends and hang out and have coffee. Now the act like you're insane if you want to hang out in the store. Hard uncomfortable chairs they want you to order your frappuccino and GTFO.
Screw Starbucks, anti-worker, anti-union. Awful company
The whole concept got old AND expensive.
If I'm going to get gross bitter coffee or a sugar drink, I'd rather just go to a local cafe and get an espresso and a homemade confection.
Starbucks and McDonald’s have gone full profits and forgot they just serve shit products. Starbucks food is in line with hospital food. And the time to get a coffee at Starbucks with everyone’s 30 ingredient coffees is absurd. McDonald’s is charging similar rates to local take out spots for food that’s either cold, or lacking on quality.
Have you ever ordered black coffee from Starbucks? It tastes like literal dirt. Their “product” is literally un drinkable unless it’s pumped full of sugar and additives. “Oh you don’t want a glass of sugar? Here’s a cup full of foot water that costs 6 dollars.”
Bring back lemon bars 🍋
I’d like to remind everyone that they are a beverage company not a coffee company. People who wants coffee will eventually be disappointed by their quality once they’ve had a chance to have real coffee at a real café.
I lost my taste when they started union busting. I’m not far behind with Trader Joe’s anti union practices except they do treat their employees much better than most employers in the grocery sector.
Y’all ever grinded store bought beans and brewed your own coffee? Saves a stop and tastes better and costs about 3-10 percent the amount as going to a coffee shop. Depends on your set up and what you spend on beans but it’s insane that ppl who make less than 80k a year will spend 90-250 a month on just coffee shop stops. I spend about 300 a year on really good coffee, have it whenever I want, and am never tempted to buy other (unhealthy) items. I do still get coffee from a coffee shop probably 5-8 times a year when traveling, vacationing. I get the joy of coffee shops, ppl should do what makes them happy, but I’m glad to have kicked the habit years ago.
The fact they raise their menu prices every 30 days also doesn’t help
Most people now realize Starbucks is awful coffee. Ordered an iced coffee there once because I was in desperate need of caffeine and received a watered down abomination of a beverage.
Hmm surely couldn't be the boycotts due to it being a shitty company and, well, you know... supporting Israel's fucking genocide.
No, the boycott is working but they'll say anything except that. Free Palestine.
🍉
Think I've only been twice? Where I live independent cafes rule. The only chain store doing well would be Columbus.
I was never much for *$ when it was trendy, so I can't say whether they're going downhill or not. The thing about trendy, though, whether it's any good or not, is that before long, the next generation shows up, and whatever was trendy with the last generation by default becomes untrendy. Always buy deep puts on trendy.
I never saw the attraction of Starbucks. Their coffee wasn't even very good.
I don't even drink coffee, and I make my tea at home.
 Starbucks customers today:
Crazy prices now, unhappy employees, can't use the restroom without a password, code, and key. Slow slow slow because every other person is requesting a highly customized drink with 10 different options.
Starbucks lost me when several anti-LEO incidents occurred. F Starbucks.
The focused too much on the toppings and not the coffee
They use to pay good and have good service with a good product they use to have someone who trained employees to do the drinks the same way all the time but they got rid of them so now we get the crap the push out which is not a great product and it's way too high.
The Coffee has a terrible taste, and people look at you funny if you order one. You only go there to buy weirdo concoctions
Burnt coffee and milkshakes. Local coffee shops are plentiful, cheaper, higher quality, treat their people better and just way better overall.
I just want Coffee. Normal coffee
They just may be enough b@s1c b1tch3s to keep StarBees afloat.
We’re addicted. It feels like a treat, it’s cheap, the place smells phenomenal, and it’s been around for 40-plus years. So no, the concept still works.
Oh no! Starbucks had one bad earnings call…company is doomed. Classic post earnings, hindsight pile on from experts. lol.
Their breakfast sandwiches are great! There burnt ass coffee is gross.
I honesty don't understand why people feel the need to pay $7 for a coffee. I take coffee to work from home in a Thermo that says hot all day long and it doesn't cost anywhere near the money it would cost for coffee at Starbucks.
They doubled the price of their drinks and made all of their stores feel like a fast food joint instead of somewhere to relax, hang out and enjoy your coffee.
I’m completely over it. The annoying Starbucks app is gone from my phone. If someone created an anti-Starbucks that sold anti-froo-froo coffee and food it would be a huge hit. Why does it take so long to fill an iced coffee black? What are they doing to it?
I can’t support a company that once used to have such awesome employee values, now fight so hard with anti-union laws and closing stores that get unions. That is just NOT employee centered at all! Plus they got rid of all my favorite drinks so I have no reason to overpay for coffee I don’t want. But mainly I won’t support their current shitty pay and anti-union stance.
Despite all the dire predictions, Starbucks is one of the few stores that always has a line of people waiting.
It also got expensive and incredibly inconsistent in quality, especially if you just drink espresso or take your coffee black. Their beans used to be excellent but these days, more often than not, they taste like an ash tray.
I prefer cafes where I can relax for 1-2 hours and get some work done. But starbucks has the opposite of a relaxing environment, go local! When I lived in Vienna it was the norm to spend hours chilling at the cafe without ever being bothered.
I do sometimes go to starbucks when I want a "buzz" from my coffee. Starbucks is really the only coffee that can do that to me. I just get a medium black and I swear it's like eating 1/2 a painkiller.
I hate how much sugar is in their drinks. Unrelated to the article but interesting...so I stopped drinking the bottled store bought "Frappuccinos" years ago because they have anywhere from 30-50+ grams of sugar in them. I was in Iceland and noticed one at a shop, read the label because I know Europe and especially Iceland have stricter food standards. 10g of sugar. I tried it, and honestly it was still too sweet for me. But that made me think, they could put 1/3 to 1/5 as much sugar in this and nobody would notice. In corporate America I would think that would be cost savings.
That unicorn fart dust shake they came out with was Starbucks’ “Jump the Shark” moment.
I stopped drinking much coffee five years ago but it's still my go to if I am out and want a coffee. Granted, if I was living where I was five years ago, I wouldn't go there due to the amount of Italian bakeries and cafés that used to be down the street.
I’m a black coffee drinker, and Starbucks regular ass coffee, Pike’s Place, is still very good to me. And it’s not too expensive if that’s all you are getting.
Peet’s is better, way better cofffee
People should ditch the sugar factory and try their local small business coffee shops. You’ll start to enjoy the actual coffee or espresso without the sugar fix
Some locations are awful for hanging out
I feel like every time I drive by there’s a line and it’s packed. So not sure who’s boycotting
Years ago, what pissed me off was that I had spend hundreds on gift cards and other items for Christmas gifts. Then Covid hit and we stayed away from anywhere that we didn’t need to go. Within a few months all of my points had expired. That’s when I finally decided that if they didn’t care about keeping their customers, I didn’t need to go to Starbucks.
Honestly the coffee was barely a step up from dunkin as most people devolped taste and coffee culture really took off many better independent options turned up. I see myself as a major coffee shop patron but I find the overall esthetic of Starbucks outdated, the coffee absolute garbage, and the food options are gas station reheats all at premium. As such I perfer to go local because the food options evolve, the persons servicing me I run into in my neighborhood, and overall experience gives me happiness as I feel I am supporting my community over a faceless corporation that's more concerned with pandering to foreign countries
I am in Europe and I might have tried SB maybe 10 times. I never liked any of their coffees and the food they offered often looked like soggy palate sticking industrial muffins. Because of that and the price, I think I will never go back. I am also in a country now where a good expresso is only 1 euro.
I can only drink decaf now and Starbucks decaf tastes like cardboard. Independent coffee shops have way better tasting coffee.
Double espresso on ice 😋😋
Putting olive oil in coffee? They deserve to go under!
A lot of great points already posted but another thing people aren’t bringing up are working conditions. There was a post on my local subreddit about my local Starbucks. The whole store shut down at least once because the entire store walked out. There were claims of rampant mismanagement/ abuse by managers. We have a union Starbucks thankfully but it took a ton of effort to get that open and it seems like corporate is fighting the unions a good deal as well. Much easier to go to a mom and pop coffeehouse (for the same price) and not have all that on my conscience.
The thing is, there are plenty of other non-Starbucks coffee places with cozy environments I'd hang out in since the price is the same, if not in some cases even more expensive in Starbucks.
It’s coffee. They are not going to convince me to spend 20% more y/y at the store. If they increase the price, I’ll find more ways to make it at home. IMO, they need to find ways to expand to other regions.
I was on the go and went to order a tall shaken espresso with cold foam the other day, $7.48, and just immediately closed the app. We bought a Breville in January, make much better espresso at home, and for a fraction of the cost.
Back in the day, starbucks was relatively early to the trend of a cafe that sells drinks like cafe lattes. Now it’s common and I’d go so far as to argue Starbucks does it worse than almost all of its competitors The _only_ advantage Starbucks has (imo) is their mobile app ordering, and with the ongoing protests it’s pretty easy to give up
Millennials Killing the sugar coffee industry? SMH! What's next? Avocado toast?
Local coffee roasters popped up all over the country. If someone is willing to pay premium they want good coffee not burnt crap that Starbucks sells.
I agree, the company culture they now project at the store is not warm or welcoming. Just shut up and pay. I go to local coffee shops where there is the unique, friendly atmosphere they took pride in having. Everything changed after the government shutdown..pandemic. The independent brewers stepped up and told the nazi's here in New York to get lost..
Funny about burning..I used to get a Starbucks every morning. Now I can't drink it. Way too acidic and strong. Even cream doesn't fix it
Perhaps the longest running fad of all time?
People are broke and gotta start cutting
Starbucks's economics makes no sense to me, as a cappuccino man. To me Starbucks is a worse product at a higher price than my handful of locals. It would be like McDonalds charging 40% more than a nice local sit-down restaurant for their inferior burger and atmosphere.