SFist Rants: Hating on Starbucks
Yeah, we know, we're supposed to hate on Starbucks, hate on them with the passion of a thousand burning suns. In fact, if there's one thing the tribes of San Francisco can all agree upon it's that Starbucks is the anti-Christ of strip-mail confectioneries. So much so we often think San Francisco should adopt as its slogan "Give us your tired, your poor, your Starbucks hating masses yearning to drink free trade, Sumatra blend coffee." But today, we come to praise Starbucks, not bury them. For in all the fire and brimstone directed at Starbucks' way, one simple incontrovertible truth still lays out there. That once you leave the cozy confines of the Bay Area (which we think a lot of people in this city need to do just to gain some perspective on things), Starbucks is really the only place you can get good coffee.
And yes, we're totally serious.
Let's go to the way back machine and take a look at those bleak, dark days before Starbucks entered the world. You remember what that was like? The moment you left the big city or the college town or what have you and ventured into strip-malled suburbia and Red State hickville, you were left in a desert with no coffee. None. Once, we were so desperate for a cup of joe that while visiting relatives in New Jersey, we made a run to the local gas station in order to get us some coffee. Even now, people are seriously talking about going to Dunkin' Donuts for their coffee fill. And yeah, the Donut actually make a pretty yummy chai tea, but we're talking about Dunkin' Donuts here.
But now, thanks to Starbucks (and yeah, we said it), it is entirely possible to get good coffee elsewhere. In fact, we bet we're not the only one’s to be elsewhere and to give a silent prayer of thanks when first spying the green, white, black emblem that says $4 grande lattés are here.
And not only is Starbucks planting coffee places all throughout the country, like a caffeinated Johnny Appleseed, but thanks to them, people are starting to get into the whole coffee shop thing. Before, the idea of just going to some place, drinking some coffee and doing nothing but reading or talking or people watching or what have you was just not done. Now coffee shops are busting out all over.
As is the whole idea of a coffee shop. We once took our fairly sophisticated and somewhat with it mother to a coffee shop and had to constantly explain to her that no, we didn't have to leave and that we could indeed just sit there till Kingdom Come if we wanted to. Now, because of the prevalence of Starbucks, everyone's doing it. We've been to Starbucks in the middle of nowhere, walked in and saw people right out of Deliverance reading their John Deere tractor manuals while finishing off a scone and non-fat, decaf frappucino.
In other words, Starbucks has made coffee and coffee shops mainstream. And we’re down.
When we were younger, so much younger than today, we too hated on Starbucks. Not in a "throwing something through a window" kind of way but we've signed our share of "Keep Starbucks Out" petitions and vowed to never, ever get coffee from them. But that was then and this is now and we're older now, more understanding of the complications there are in life. One of the things we love about living in the Mission is that when we want some coffee, we have more than our fair share of independent coffee shops to choose from. And we do. In SF city limits, we try to steer clear of Starbucks and go visit the smaller places. And we're certainly not going to write a Rave about them. But we don't hate them.