Results tagged “starbucks”

Remove Outlets at Cafes?

Sheer heresy, right? To ban laptop power connectivity at your favorite cafes? Well, that's just what some cafes in New York City, according to a article, are doing in an effort to get squatters to shift it. See, many customers (including some of you right this very second) buy a cup of coffee, then set up shop at a cafe for hours and hours in between small sips -- basically, running a business or obtaining a pointless college degree from a cafe for mere pennies. Which, really, isn't a good thing for the cafe, whose power and free wi-fi most of you gobble up on a daily basis. They're businesses, not libraries. (Fine. Your SFist Editor must admit to, at times, running this site at SOMA's Epicenter Cafe or The Creamery. Guilty as charged. But we do wolf down at least three onion bagels with cream cheese while squatting, so, you know, we're not that bad. Anyway.)

Jane Stillwater, a Berkelery blogger and Ghost Whisperer fan, is hopping mad. See, Stillwater is suing the US Army for a plane ticket and 15 mocha lattes because she had been given the green light to be embedded with troops in Iraq, which was canceled after "she bought the ticket for anyway and waited at a Starbucks for two days hoping the military would reconsider." (Really? Two days at Starbucks? Was superior Peet's Coffee unavailable?) Her request for the armed serviced to pay her back was denied, so like any red-blooded American, she's now taking them to court. (KNTV)

God bless the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. Their blog, Pushing Back, claims that there are more medical marijuana spots than Starbucks in San Francisco, adding, the "state 'medical' marijuana laws breed confusion, abuse, and violence in neighborhoods and communities."

Wow. We hope we're this feisty, and wildly insane, when we're sixty-four.

Visitors to all the standalone Starbucks across the country yesterday evening couldn't get their buzz on. Why? Because of the temporary national shutdown. Starbucks workers, like these on busy Masonic (where there will be a rally to make that avenue safer at 11:00AM this morning by the way), learned how to do things the Starbuckian way last night.

For as much as everyone pretends to be indie coffee house-loving, Starbucks-hating, people of god -- we're not. Especially when we're lazy. If we're in the financial district and want our half-caff, venti macchiato with a double shot of sugar-free vanilla and only want to walk two steps from our door to get it, so be it. We're going to Starbucks. But NOT, however, on February 26th between the hours of 5:30 to 8:30 PM. All Starbucks across the US will be closed during these hours (local time) to "[Demonstrate] Unprecedented Level of Commitment to Partner (Employee) Coffee Education and Training." At least, that's according to the Starbucks press release.

Now that donuts have made a return to Bay Area coffee houses--minus its exhausting Homer Simpsonesque, white-trash irony--you can find the preferable pastries at places like Ritual Coffee Roasters (vegan! and actually good!), Seattle's Best at Border's Books & Music (double-glazed), and even Starbucks (plasticky). With the return of the donut comes the return of the brewed coffee. At least, according to today's New York Times, which profiles the Blue Bottle Cafe, scheduled to open today this week, and their bizarre Jules Verne-ish coffee contraption. The first-prize-at-the-science-fair-like machine is poised to make coffee's tarnished reputation shine again.

It wouldn't be SFist if it weren't rife with errors and bipolarity-tinged posts. But we got word of an especially egregious error we made today--something, we're ashamed to admit, we never knew. From the SFist inbox:

This tickles us ever so. Last year after 4,000+ folks in the Richmond held their breath until their faces turned blue, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to ban the popular coffee chain Starbucks from setting up shop at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Geary. Problem solved, right? Wrong.

Here's todays sports news

Last week's winner, the San Jose Metro. Alas! They haven't updated their site for this week yet, and we didn't manage to snag a hard copy of the paper, so they'll have to forfeit in the Weekly of the Week contest for the week.

Since our trimethyldioxypurist is on the road for Labor Day, we're stepping in on the caffeine beat to pass along some sad news: Peet's Coffee founder Alfred Peet died earlier this week (Wednesday) in Oregon.

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. We should totally put needle disposal boxes in Golden Gate Park. Also, C.W. Nevius says that Newsom called him and yelled at him for 45 minutes after he wrote his first article on the issue. We'd put that call on mute. Gentrification is destroying Polk Street. City contractors still use sweatshop labor. Annalee Newitz has mice. Sonic Reducer's still at the Guardian. Cover article: Local bands to watch. You've got your whisky swillers, your barefoot folksters, your hip-hoppers, and some fey whimsy. And read Marke B's column and show him not everyone's away for Burning Man!

. Meredith ventures back to the Mission to try that place that opened in the old KFC (she had the lobster). Minnie Driver uses the word love 54 times on her album. And former SFist Violet Blue guests in the Savage Love.

-- No official Halloween bash happening in the Castro, anywhere in SF. Hmm, this will be interesting/scary to watch come 10/31. [Chron, The Snitch]

-- Will Harper has it that Chris Daly might run for mayor now that Gonzalez is out. Whoa, a real contender! Interesting. [The Snitch (SF Weekly)]

Hey, have you seen all those annoying "Let's meet at Starbucks" adverts? Quite irritating. Well, SBUX is indeed bringing folks together -- in a way they may not be too happy about. many businesses and residents in the Inner Richmond are protesting via petition an invasion of one of Starbuck's nigh ubiquitous stores.

Photo of an overwhelmed garbage can with news of fewer cans in S.F. than before.

Friend-of-SFist Matt V passes along these photos of a verrrrry safe looking taxi, sighted outside a Starbucks in the Abandoned Warehouse district of the Mission. "You choose what you pay," it says on the side, which is exactly how Lucifer would phrase an offer.

What's with all the "McDonald's coffee is better than Starbucks," survey stuff going around? Evidently, a taste test or two places the coffee from the Golden Arches in a higher position than the ubiquitous chain-coffee house. This started about a month back with this Consumer Reports study, and has been percolating further on recent "stunning revelations" that McD's is going to serve actual espresso as well. One of the most bothersome aspects of this is major news concerns are talking and talking about it. STOP! PLEASE!

A reader of SFist sends word that another great SF place will close, that place being Canvas, the coffe shop/art gallery/what have you in the Iinner Sunset. Word has it that like the John Barylecorn, the lease was up and the landlord sold it to the Pacific Catch, a seafood chain.

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Superbowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning.

If you were wondering where your yummy, delicious breakfast treats were at Starbucks this morning the answer is that Starbucks is no longer serving them. Now that trans fats have become Public Enemy #1 in the battle against obesity and heart disease, Starbucks has decided to fight the good fight and stop selling them. Starting today, any sort of muffin, doughnut or what have you that has trans fat will no longer be served.

From the Starbucks (not really a) bomber in January to the opening of the Daiso in December, it was certainly one heck of a year, wasn't it?

Steny Hoyer: I hope there aren't any hard feelings, Nancy. It's gonna be great working together. We'll get Starbucks, watch The View, have Botox parties...

First the crash in the housing market, now this -- a woman in San Jose's been arrested for going to open houses near the Silver Creek Valley country club neighborhood, unlocking a door in the house while she was there, and then coming back after everyone left to steal stuff. She made off with 200 figurines (!!!) valued at $200,000 from one would-be home seller's collection and went through 10 houses total before the real estate agents figured out what was going on.

Tower Records is officially donezo as it's closing up it's stores in the area. That's the bad news. The good news is that all of this means EVERYTHING MUST GO! THESE PRICES ARE INSANE!!!! Which is another way of saying they're having a liquidation sale.

You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater.

http://www.ironicsans.com/2006/07/a_parallel_istaverse.html">this awesome post.

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it a few more times, just for fun? For example, SFist is sure the San Francisco Chronicle wishes they could blame server problems for this error. But this San Francisco man that appeared on "The Daily Show" is, sadly, no glitch in the system.

1 2 3