Considering I have several actual gold roasteries in town and pay the same price? Yeah, fuck the mermaid.
Yeah. Cause Starbucks over roasts their coffee to ensure consistency across the brand. It tastes like shit. Gas station coffee is better. You go to Starbucks for the milk shakes made in a coffee shop. You get coffee somewhere else.
Dunkin is literally better, unless things have changed, their policy was to always have a < 15 minute pot of coffee ready. Any longer and it starts to spoil. Freshly grinded beans and a freshly brewed is probably the single most important part of coffee, inexpensive beans can taste good.
This is true at Starbucks too, the freshness of the brew is not why their coffee is bad. This is the company that sold charcoal as French roast for years before anyone noticed it was so overroasted it tasted like bad fish and ash. (I’ve never had a more difficult roast to find a pairing for - Smore’s is the answer, if anyone cares, to make starbucks french roast not taste awful)
I’m old enough to remember that when a Starbucks opened up in a part of the city that was known as being “slightly sketchy” then that area was in the process of starting to go through gentrification. now? at least here in Canada Starbucks is just a more expensive version of Tim Hortons who have some how made it possible for their coffee to taste worse than tims. And that gentrification stuff? nah man no longer applies. You’d be an idiot to go to a starbucks and pulling out your laptop to “work” these days as some fent head will just grab it off you after they wake up from their fade hunched over near the starbucks restrooms.
Growing up I could get good inexpensive coffee at any gas station across the prairies. Thanks Marketing!!
When was that?
I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and coffee at gas stations was shit.
I guess we had different standards? Maybe my gas stations made more fresh coffee than yours? I have come across shitty gas station coffee but that was the exception, not the rule.
Wait, you’re telling me that when the economy basically collapses, people can’t afford their regular coffee flavored morning milkshake?
As someone from the PNW, I’ve ever understood why there were lines at Starbucks here. We have great local coffee stands on basically every block, and they’re typically way better and much cheaper.
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People like being part of trends
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People like milkshakes they can deny are milkshakes
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Starbucks coffee tastes burned, not worth their price.
Starbucks was an amusing rise and fall.
- Put one on every street-corner, possibly across the street from each other.
- Run all the other coffee shops out of business
- Let your stores fail because they can’t sustain themselves
- Competitors notice this, and move in with drive-through-only stores
Of course the competitors are small chains and the original shops were indie, but that’s just the free hand of the market fisting some folks without lube
Anti-union strike-breakers are losing business? Say it ain’t so.
They didn’t revolutionize coffee culture, they just capitalized on it.
Starbucks has moderately tasty food, and disgustingly bad coffee. If they put enough sugar into it, it’s fine… But going elsewhere yields better results.
The food is gross
Dude I live in an armpit of a city and even I can find a small mom and pop shop that sells better food than Starbucks, prepackaged microwaved slopass shit. You gotta have been stuck in the woods chewing on bark to think that shit is tasty.
I haven’t had a single good Starbucks experience. The biggest thing for me is that they aren’t even cheaper than a local shop. I’m sacrificing quality for what, the “convenience” of using an app to order?
In perhaps undue fairness to Starbucks:
There was a point in time where their breakfast egg muffin sandwich type things were imo, pretty darn tasty, and reasonably priced.
… That was around a decade ago, iirc.
I’ve not been to an SBUX in a long time, but that decade ago, they were actually making them or at least heating them in a toaster oven, not microwave, at least when I was physically inside the store.
The only food item I moderately liked there was the sous vide egg bites, and even those have gone through enshittification now, costing more and tasting worse.
Americans are pretty fucking disgusted that the CEO of Starbucks takes a private jet to work in Seattle from his home in California. Eat the rich.
Good. Who wants to drink burnt coffee from a megacorp when I can drink coffee that’s actually good from a local business?
Do it like me and make awful coffee right at home 🚀
How are you making it? It could be good coffee. I use an Aeropress occasionally and it’s a decent sub for espresso.
I don’t drink coffee, but I hear you can make it yourself.
People can cook for themselves, too, but sometimes they like to go out for food. Same with coffee. It can be nice to get out of the house and go for a cup of coffee, or grab a cup when you happen to be out. Ever tried making a cup of coffee on a road trip? Not impossible, but not super practical for most people. If you want a latte but you don’t own an espresso machine you’re kind of out of luck (unless you want to get an Aeropress). Anyway, there’s lots of reasons why you’d go to a coffee shop.
Shit, I’m a four star chef, and most of what I eat is Taco Bell. Why? Because cooking for one person is a damn PITA, and I like Taco Bell.
I don’t drink the zombie bean though. I will say that Starbucks smells slightly burnt, compared to the local coffee shops.
I’m a four star chef
Doing your job at home too can be a big annoyance. That I certainly get. I’m a programmer, and damn do I not have any desire to program at home.
Because cooking for one person is a damn PITA
The secret is to cook for 6, then put 5 portions in the fridge for later.
Former coder here, and yes, absolutely no desire to code in my spare time.
I am not a four star chef. And I would never eat at taco bell.
Yuck.
Of all the fast food, as a chef you know everything they make can be made at home in 10 minutes and with real ingredients.
If I’ve done the hours of prep, pre-cooking, par-cooking, and cleanup that’s required to have those ingredients ready to go, yes everything at Taco Bell takes less than 5 minutes to get ready. If I’m hosting or catering a party that effort is worth it. If I’m the only one eating it, it isn’t as all I’m tasting are the mistakes I may have made.
But he’s been cooking all day. I know several cooks and chefs, and the last thing any of them want to do after a day of constant cooking is to go home and cook some more, even if it takes 10 min. Now are there better (healthier) options than Taco Bell? Sure, but maybe they just enjoy Taco Bell, and maybe it’s an occasional treat.
And then you have to do the dishes too, of which you would need multiple if you are adding in all the same ingredients as taco bell menu items and getting it done in 10 minutes.
a can o’ re-fried beans, shredded cheese in a bag, brown some meat? all goes in the dishwasher…
I just made quesadillas tonight, one pan to wipe out and that was about it.
Taco bell is pretty low effort.
If you want better, sure: cook your own beans, shred your own cheese, make some real salsa. but Taco bell level? just slop on a tortilla.
Edit: I gotta edit this, as in the end, I can’t take it that seriously. If you are a chef, its like being a mechanic or a landscaper. My car works, but its a beater, or my yard is full of weeds.
When you work in a field, doing that outside of work is just more steps.
Do what you like, of course.
Starbucks is shit, it has always been shit, it will always forever be shit.
There’s a reason it failed in Australia. There’s a reason it only exists still in Australia and that’s only to cater to tourists who don’t like coffee but like coffee-flayoured milk bevetages - you’ll never find Australians in there except maybe if working and forced to make shit drinks. Literally everywhere else is better, including fast food places.
I’ll give it some credit as a “third place” but literally every other coffee shop is too and they serve actual coffee.
It’s not a third place anymore. They changed that policy about a year ago.
It’s absolutely always been shit. I’ve hated it since it gained popularity. There was a time when people would treat you as a coffee snob for hating it, but that seems to have waned as more people realized that it’s shit, even by fast food standards. I’d rather drink local, but hell I’ll take McDonald’s coffee over sbux
Eh, it wasn’t always shit, but it has been for longer than most people have been of coffee-drinking age. Once upon a time, they were a small company, and finding a location was a rare treat, and the coffee was leaps and bounds better than anything else you could find at the time.
I can tell you exactly why people aren’t going to Starbucks anymore: the quality has declined from lack of training, it’s now overpriced coffee for what it is, and their shops aren’t even good “3rd places” anymore - their furniture isn’t comfortable and the space design implies “give us money, then gtfo”. Starbucks as just turned into an overpriced fast-food coffee company
I used to frequently go to a Starbucks in the town I went to uni in; To the point where the baristas knew me by name. I went a lot because it was that 3rd place I could go and study / get work done, with readily available snacks and beverages. However, they ended up closing that shop, even though it was one of the highest rated shops in either the town/province because: they couldn’t put a drive-through in at that location 🤦
It’s ironic how at that old location, they used to write / draw stuff on the cups for their loyal customers because there was an actual friendship between the employees and the regular customers. Now they write generic stuff on the cups as “corporate mandated fun”
The local shops in my area are making a huge comeback. Starbucks killed most of the local little independents around 15 years ago. They did it by providing consistent quality and reasonable pay to their employees.
Recently local chains/independents have made a resurgence. Their secret, heavily recruiting the experienced trained Starbucks employees full-time at better pay and benefits.
Starbucks traffic is plummetting while local companies are expanding rapidly.
This morning I went to the bank and gas station right next to a Starbucks that has been there for 20 years and a 4 month old local chain. Starbucks had one person in the drive-through and maybe half a dozen people in the store. The local chain had a 10 car line and a full parking lot.
The coffee has always been bad.
The coffee is burnt, the milk is thin and overcooked, and this has just been a constant part of the experience forever.
What’s really changed is there’s other places to compare with, and it’s now obvious what coffee can taste like and where to go if you want one that’s half way decent.
There are two mom and pop food trucks with pretty good coffee (bean grinding, not Folgers) within reasonable walking distance of my house. There are a bunch of both food trucks and sit down joints with coffee, breakfast pastries/sandwiches, and good branding within reasonable driving distance. Even my shitty hometown has a coffee shop now and that place is garbage.
Starbucks showed that there was an appetite for coffee that isn’t just white label drip diner coffee that will strip the paint off the walls. It normalized it so that it wasn’t as pretentious looking. They normalized coffee shops. But you’re absolutely right, it’s just terrible until they add 1000 calories of dessert to it.
Idk when it was ever good or a good value…
My friends always wanted to go after school around 2005 and it was overpriced and shitty then
I’m certain they’ve changed their recipes. The PSL was weak af this season. I admittedly treat myself to at least one a season because they used to be tasty. They are no longer tasty. I tried twice in different cities/states. Same weak flavor from both stores.
Starbucks feels like the Blockbuster of the quick-stimulation market. Once there were no alternatives, now there are loads, often cheaper and better. Without constant customer flow, it’s suddenly just vast amounts of premium real estate that need paying for. And unlike smaller competitors, it doesn’t have much room to pivot. Watching how that unwinds will be interesting.
In my area the local shops are completely destroying Starbucks. This morning I went to 8
