Thread: Challenge to Starbucks

Originally Posted by blackgang

Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp

Fucking McDonalds, scum of the earth.

Just can't get over them running your ass off after a trial period of one week, can you..

What a fucking insult, you think my life has been that dull that I would resent getting fired by a company I was out to sabotage even then.

Learn to read.

Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp

What a fucking insult, you think my life has been that dull

Well, From reading your posts from the time you came to TV and then over here, I would have to say that if you have posted the truth and that is all you have had to do, then yes you do have a pretty dull life.

I challenge Starbucks to make a cup of coffee that even comes close to the 20 Baht cup that is served in the coffee shop next to my office.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by Thormaturge

Starbuck's has a reputation for quality at a price.

I thought it had a reputation for producing bland, tasteless shite and overcharging the customer for it?

UK coffee sucks. Thankgod for milk. I remember the coffee shops from 1982, that's how bad the coffee is in the UK.

If the dollar dips much lower, they're there. Right now they're at 33B with free refill. Hell, the Thais would never leave.

Originally Posted by Terry White

UK coffee sucks. Thankgod for milk. I remember the coffee shops from 1982, that's how bad the coffee is in the UK.

Indeed. The UK hasn't changed a bit since 1982.

Did you ever wonder why we drunk tea?

Originally Posted by Terry White

You're a poor bastard aren't you. Do you ever think that you help keep the people of thailand poor. I would guess you like to feel superior. Buy your cheap coffee but one day when the waiter pulls out a machete and cuts your farang head off remember this, "Life is but a dream".

You're right of course. I forced them to make good coffee and sell it cheaply.

I presume you're making a bit effort to become TD's resident retard. A fine start - keep it up!

Originally Posted by blackgang

Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp

What a fucking insult, you think my life has been that dull

Well, From reading your posts from the time you came to TV and then over here, I would have to say that if you have posted the truth and that is all you have had to do, then yes you do have a pretty dull life.

I have posted the truth though not always revealed all and I've had an amazing time - esp with the carnival, and we all know how lucky we are (maybe not the Russians, they took it for granted) - forums have simply filled in the gaps.

Anyway, what does this have to do with coffee and burgers?

Good for the kunts. Glad to see it. I really don't care for pretentious people.

Chicago Tribune
18 July 2008

Starbucks has spent millions marketing its outrageously expensive and elitist coffee beverages—even pushing those foolish lemon bars on innocent people—and now the company is closing 600 stores.

But all the high priests of the Church of Coffee had to do to prevent the catastrophe was to spend about $3.50 for a used American history book.

There, among the stirring tales of the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Intolerable Acts and the murder of the heroic and much under-appreciated Alexander Hamilton, they would have found the answer to their woes.

Americans started drinking coffee in the first place because tea was so dang expensive, with the English controlling the market and slapping taxes on it, so that a bunch of crazy hooligans from Boston dressed up in war paint and dumped a whole boatload in anger.

Coffee at the time was boiled, then percolated, finally dripped. Cowboys drank it. Rugged explorers pursuing our manifest destiny drank it.

President Theodore Roosevelt drank a gallon of coffee every day before he'd go out to shoot a bunch of creatures and put their heads on his wall. And when he'd sit down with his gallon of coffee, no one would dare tell Roosevelt that he'd just ordered a "venti." He might just put their heads on his wall.

I have a recurring nightmare in which Roosevelt confronts me on Michigan Avenue while I'm holding my favorite, a large mocha Frappuccino. He stares at it, then begins to mock me, louder and louder. My face turns beet red from the shame, and I begin to run on my stumpy bowlegs, with Roosevelt yelling, "Bully! Bully!"

A few years ago, Americans were tricked by marketers into becoming zealots of the Church of Coffee and spending $5 and up for coffee products. But now gas is almost $5. So take your choice: Drive to work or sip your venti.

Americans are in revolt, not by dumping Starbucks baristas into the harbors, but by doing something much more subversive:

Going to Dunkin' Donuts, where they can get a cup of coffee and two doughnuts (make mine jelly) for around $3 and change.

We called Dunkin' Donuts to find out why the company is booming, but executives there didn't have the decency to discuss this phenomenon on the phone. Instead, they sent out a bland corporate statement, which tells me they've got some former Starbucks suits there.

"Our customers . . . are passionate about our coffee and baked goods, because they can get a consistently superior product, served fast, at an affordable price," said the statement from the public relations guy, who said Dunkin' is adding 500 stores.

Later, I walked around Michigan Avenue, confronting people, asking them: If I gave them $5 for breakfast and they had a choice between Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, which would they choose?

"Dunkin', " said a woman.

Why?

"Because I get my fix, and I'm full," she said.

That's a lot snappier than the corporate bland-speak from the PR guy. Get your fix, get your fill. All I ask in return is a lifetime supply of Munchkins.

"Pardon me?" asked Mr. Patel, the manager of the Dunkin' Donuts in Countryside.

I explained, like a pilgrim seeking wisdom, that I had journeyed to his store to ask the eternal question. Why is Dunkin' Donuts kicking Starbucks' behind?

"Good coffee, and our doughnuts are nice," said a woman behind the counter. Mr. Patel didn't like that she spoke up.

"I cannot say," Mr. Patel said. "We're not allowed to discuss it. I know the reason. So do you. But it would be better that you speak to the owner. I'm not the owner."

One customer, an overly caffeinated guy who called himself Ziggy—a house painter who claimed he'd been a professor in Europe who'd been blackballed for his Maoist views—insisted that expensive coffee wasn't the problem.

"America is spending too much on bottled water! How many bottles of $1.50 water to the gallon? Do the math! Do the math!" Ziggy insisted, and I pretended to figure it, without knowing the ounces of the hypothetical bottles, nodding and smiling, as would anyone confronted by a madman.

I was saved by a gracious lady, Rosemary O'Brien of La Grange. She's no Starbucksista.

"That other stuff is expensive," she said. "Here, you can have a doughnut. Or two and the paper and coffee—and it won't cost you $5. And that's important, especially today, with things being so expensive."

What about being associated with Starbucks? Isn't there value in having the Starbucks cup in your hand as you proclaim your sensitivity to the environment while driving one of those new green mini-Hummers?

"Oh, so you can walk around with a Starbucks cup? You'll pay extra money for that? How nice. No thanks," Mrs. O'Brien said.

If Barrack Obama had any sense, he'd hire Mrs. O'Brien to be the next secretary of the Treasury. It's about time someone in Washington knows the value of a dollar.

Or, of a cup of coffee.

***

I've said it all along. Dunkin Donuts is much better value -- without the earring.

Fvcking brilliant Tex, sums it all up

Originally Posted by Texpat

and now the company is closing 600 stores.

Good. Means less people will drink their shit.

Originally Posted by peterpan

Fvcking brilliant Tex, sums it all up

well, except for the fact that Dunkin Donuts coffee is also poor quality

??? Starbucks does not look cool Tex!

just crappy

Originally Posted by Texpat

We called Dunkin' Donuts to find out why the company is booming, ...

But what's so hard to understand? Dunkin Donuts has merely trumped Starbucks' caffeine offering with caffeine plus sugared fried starch (at a comparable price). How could that fail here in the Land of Lard?

McD's new coffee ain't bad. Not as rich tasting as Thai coffee (I continue to agree with Marmite on this point), but cheaper than Starbuck's, whose green tea really sucks.

Originally Posted by melvbot

I used to like Starbucks as it was about the easiest way to get a decent coffee in the UK. McDonalds coffee was terrible, anywhere else was instant crap like Nescafe then you could have a tall creamymoccachinowhippy so it was a no brainer. Over here I brew my own, wouldnt touch Starbucks anymore. Its like the Budweiser of coffee to me now, bland and tasteless.

It always was like that!!

as for the UK, before Starbucks, there were hundreds of small, often Italian, coffee shops selling excellent coffee in London. If you were in some small town, then maybe it would have been more difficult, but still possible.