Starbucks tries to be consistent. They have standard brewing procedures, as McDonalds has standards for burger preparation. A Big Mac is just as disgusting in Pottstown as it is in Cleveland as it is in the northern suburbs of Denver. There is no McDonalds in Pine Ridge, SD so I can’t compare. And a cup of Gold Coast tastes the same in all those places too.
This is one of the reasons I like Starbucks. I’m apparently not alone in this. There is at least one former SBux detractor who has come over to the dark side and for pretty much the same reason.
Once I moved here from here, I immediately searched for three things: used book stores, farmers’ markets, and Starbuckses (that's how Gollum would pronounce it I think). It took me two months to find a decent used book store, and what I thought would be the farmers’ market capital of the world turned out to be the farmers’ market hole of the universe. I was used to the Cleveland West Side Market. I was spoiled.
I also discovered that there is a vast Starbucks void running along a northwest line from Trooper PA clear over to State College, 181 miles away. I took up residence exactly on this line. To the north it is somewhat better, but not enough. And to the south, there is plenty of the Green and White, but one has to travel on the dreaded Route 100 to get the closest one. My friend Mike Holliday, a local guitartist-singer-songwriter has a song he always dedicates to “the other travelers on Route 100 who try to kill me at 100 miles per hour every morning,” the song is called Accident Waiting to Happen.
There is a Dunkin Donuts not a quarter mile from my house. The grocery stores around here sell multiple varieties of Starbucks whole bean coffee. Why do I bother? I do have a reason, but that’s for another post, another time.
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