I’ve Heard of Drive-Through Espresso, But…
Folks in Berkeley tend to be a little, shall we say, disapproving of big-name national franchises. We prefer our funky homegrown alternatives. My wife and I discovered this the hard way one evening a few years ago. We were sitting outside a Starbucks on Center Street, talking and sipping coffee, when someone walked by and booed us. That’s right. Booed us.
Since then, the Starbucks Resistance Front has apparently upped the ante a bit:
An SUV driver battered his vehicle through the doors of the Starbucks at Solano and Colusa avenues Tuesday morning, scattering a dozen or more customers who leapt out of the way and jumped through open windows as he backed up and tried it again.
The Berkeley Daily Planet, July 29, 2005
After the second attempt to ram his way into the Starbucks, the driver turned the SUV around and sped off down the street, leaving behind wreckage, mayhem, and a front bumper with a license plate. As you can imagine, the driver was swiftly tracked down and apprehended by Berkeley police. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
But I think I’ll stick to the independent coffeehouses for now.
9 Ripples from “I’ve Heard of Drive-Through Espresso, But…”
Nicole says:
July 30, 2005 at 10:07 pm
Does anyone else think it’s ironic that the culprit was driving an SUV? I thought that was funny.
Zalm, my man, I have idolized you so much. Little did I know that you are part of the starbucks addiction club. Sigh, so much disappointment in this world...
zalm says:
July 31, 2005 at 9:07 pm
But it’s not our fault. They put an addictive chemical in it that makes you crave it fortnightly....
Actually, we go to Starbucks pretty rarely (although it is the closest coffee bar to church). On the whole, we tend to patronize the independents. Well, and Peet’s. But that started in Berkeley, so I guess that’s okay.
shaug says:
July 31, 2005 at 10:07 pm
Ooohh! They’re going to make you drink their coffee! Ooohhhh!
...
Sorry. I’m powerless to resist, as you well know…
Jim says:
August 1, 2005 at 7:08 am
I like local coffeehouses too, but to tell you the truth, the few that we have around here just don’t make very good coffee. Atmosphere is one thing, but a coffeehouse with crappy coffee, well…
I’m an unapologetic SBux fan. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest that you visit a Starbucks here and there. I just hope you don’t drive an SUV. Now that would really be bad.
Nicole says:
August 1, 2005 at 10:09 am
Well, what do I know? I don’t like coffee.
Streak says:
August 30, 2005 at 10:08 pm
makes you crave it fortnightly?.... Fortnightly? Isn’t that like every two weeks? I don’t think that qualifies as an addiction. It has been about 5 hours since my last Bucks and I am a little edgy.
The SUV thing is funny. What exactly was he protesting?
As for me, I would be glad to frequent a decent competing nonStarbucks cafe, but in Oklahoma, it is a choice between strong and dark coffee (Starbucks) or weak and ineffectual coffee.
zalm says:
August 30, 2005 at 11:09 pm
True, that’s not your garden variety addiction. It was actually a reference to Mike Myers’ diatribe about KFC in So I Married an Axe Murderer. Although in my case, it also happens to be roughly accurate. I probably don’t go to a Starbucks any more regularly than that.
I haven’t heard any epilogue on that Starbucks story. As far as the paper said, the guy was just a little unhinged. Which might be saying a lot, by Berkeley standards.
Honestly, I don’t begrudge most people their Starbucks fetish. Yeah, they’re corporate, and yeah, they’re freakishly ubiquitous, but if someone doesn’t know the area, they also offer something more or less familiar and consistent.
But in a church.... that’s a different story.
Kevin says:
August 31, 2005 at 8:08 am
Sigh. If only you guys had Caribou Coffee. It’s not independent, but it’s yummy.
Anyways, I’ve never been to Starbucks and I don’t know if I ever will. There are certain corporations I avoid just on principle. But Starbucks is a better corporation than most. I read something a while back about them using quite a bit of wind power in their stores. And in general they seem pretty socially conscious.
bestman says:
September 1, 2005 at 6:09 am
I agree, Kevin. My caffiend wife is an unapologetic Starbucks drinker...we generally prefer Caribou (and Seattle’s Best, as well as some independents) to Starbucks in most cases, but not so much on a moral-imperative basis. It’s far from the evil corporation it’s made out to be, based on their corporate policies as well as the kind of product/atmosphere they’re striving for...if you compare it to the McUbiquitous chain that really changed the face—and waistline—of American consumerism for the worse, it looks pretty good.
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