No More Loitering at Starbucks
When the Starbucks craze began, the coffee chain welcomed lap-toppers glued to social media and friends’ messages. They made the coffee shops look full and cool and it was somewhere to hang.
But lately all that good karma has evaporated. This week, the coffee chain said if you want to cyber squat or use the washroom, pay up. Apparently, cyber squatters – who buy one measly Ethiopian blend and nurse it all day – have begun to affect the bottom line.
Starbucks Was a Cultural Phenomenon
The 90’s had Cheers style bars where everyone knew your name; the 2000’s had Starbucks where everyone knows your Venti No Foam No Whip Double Mocha Skim Frappuccino.
Bucks convinced Americans that Happy Hour should be wired not wasted and that they had a Macchiato deficiency that requires five dollars – maybe more and 500 calories a day to treat. (Prices have so gone up, some call the coffee chain “Sevenbucks.”
Prescriptions for sleeping pills like Ambien and Lunesta have mushroomed – was Bucks why?
Power Apron Jobs
In the 90’s “power apron” jobs at Starbucks and Kinko’s were hot because they offered health coverage and tuition reimbursement. Unlike bar jobs, you didn’t have to sweep up cigarette butts and the detritus from over-served customers.
But six months after a Bucks tour, most baristas say “espresso drunks” are worse than their tavern counterparts because they don’t tip, get mellow, leave change on the counter or know any Irishman jokes. Worse, if baristas are short-tempered with them they will remember it the next day unlike many drinkers.
Size Lies
Who would have thought in the days of Mr. Coffee makers and taking the thermos to work, that one day people would drink an entire pint of coffee at one sitting? Without suffering an arrhythmia? From “tall” which means small, to “grande” which is an actual pint (see brandy, motor oil, I.V.s), no one can accuse Starbucks of under-serving patrons.
Meanwhile, patrons ask for “room” in the cup for cream but not “room” in their stomach for gigantic drinks.
Driving While Cranked
Is it a coincidence that road rage debuted at the same time as 300 mg caffeine drinks from Bucks? Maybe instead of Hang Up and Drive, bumper stickers should say Detox and Drive.
Not only do today’s Cherokees, Navigators and Pathfinders have a place for you to set your Venti No Foam No Whip Double Mocha Skim Frappuccino (while you’re talking on your cell) – Starbucks had a place for the Cherokees, Navigators and Pathfinders to drive through! Just follow the fumes you see as they idle under a toxic plume.
No Kids; No Gray Hair
Starbucks was accused of gentrifying because the very young or very old are conspicuously absent. Kids are absent because they don’t drink coffee (hopefully), their parents would be in deep doo-doo if they broke the $329 ceramic coffee bean grinder and, with three tables, where are you going put the stroller?
Seniors are absent because which budget does the $10.50 for a pastry and drink come out of – food or gas? (Of course there are some gray heads on the other side of the Starbucks counter, bowed less with old age than the humility of accepting such a “second career.”)
The Pause that Fattens
Because of the caffeine, sugar and java jolt, many thought of Starbucks as a fitness aid and had a coffee drink before, during or after their workout.
But at 600 calories – not counting the scone – the “energy” a Bucks’ beverage imparted didn’t work off its own calories, even after an hour on the treadmill. People ended up addicted to the gym – and Starbucks.
Maybe, with Buck’s new policy, people will end up loitering at the gym. Or maybe Subway will make a play for their customers.
This is an excerpt from the new humor book Food, Clothes, Men, Gas, and Other Problems https://tinyurl.com/44rx3ezc
