Results tagged “Starbucks” from Come on Feel the Nuys

It's the economy, stupid. And in response, Starbucks is starting a "rewards program." Earth to Seattle: We've been in shit soup for more than two years now. (And while I'm at it, ain't nobody gonna pay nearly $1 for single serving of instant coffee. What are you thinking?)

It looks like the Sbux brain trust realized nobody was going for that stupid pay-extra "Gold" card, and they're now admitting that it was a big bag of BS and offering that same privilege to anybody who makes 30 purchases with a "regular" Starbucks card.

The upside is that with every 15 uses of your Sbux card you get a free drink. And 30 uses ups you into the Gold ranks, the benefits of which still elude me. You get coupons and this: A "Personalized Gold Card - We'll send you a special Starbucks Card that recognizes you are one of our favorite customers."

Lipstick, meet pig.

My immediate question/issue: Do you have to buy 30 drinks before you start getting the 1 free drink every 15 drinks deal? That looks like the way it is. Does anybody vet this crap before they release it on a downtrodden public?

What really irks me about this announcement is that SBux is making it look like after five uses you get all these magical benefits that you used to get with using the card only once in any given month:

• Free Wi-Fi - Up to 2 Continuous Hours a Day
• Free Beverage Customization
• Free Refills on Brewed Coffee
• Free Beverage with Whole Bean Purchase
• Free Trial Offers

Let's see ... instead of using the card once in a month, I have to use it FIVE times? Hopefully that'll be it ... they won't reset the "five times" meter every month. That way I can get my free WiFi, refills and "customization" in perpetuity. Is that how it is? I'm OK with that, but they're making it look like it's something special and new, which it isn't.

If only Coffee Bean went back to their free drink with every x number of purchases program. (It's been so long that I can't remember how many punches you needed on your card before the free flowed.)

My analysis: Starbucks is running scared. This smells of roasted desperation.

Photo by Boris from his Flickr page released under a Creative Commons license.

When it came to voting in his first presidential election, Kyle Honkoski left nothing to chance.

The 21-year-old Van Nuys resident, who works at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills, took the day off to make sure he could cast his ballot.

"I stayed up late watching the news," Honkoski said at 11 a.m. Tuesday in line at the Burbank Oaks Apartments in Sherman Oaks. "I'm actually really excited."

The apartment complex on Burbank Boulevard, just north of the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks border, drew a long line of voters the entire morning, with waits of about an hour.

While Honkoski was eager to cast his vote for Barack Obama, 76-year-old Van Nuys resident Louise Gfeiner was thinking more about who she was voting against.

The retired registered nurse wore a vintage "Morris for President" button. In case you don't remember, Morris was the finicky cat who would only eat 9Lives brand food.

"I think (John) McCain is too old," Honkoski said, "and if he dies, we'll have Sarah (Palin). She may be fine as governor, but I'm not ready for her to be president."

Honkoski was also planning to vote against most of the measures on the ballot.

I think we're deeply in debt enough. We can't afford more bond issues."

During their hour wait in the morning sun, voters had plenty of time to chat with their neighbors, or even catch up on their reading.

Jill Jacobson-Bennett, 53, of Van Nuys, carried a volume on California native plants.

A choreographer-turned-landscape designer, Jacobson-Bennett was as determined as others in line.

"I feel passionate about the election and some of the propositions — I want my voice to be heard," said the Democrat, a former Hillary Clinton supporter. While happy to cast her vote for Obama, she was glad Sen. Clinton didn't draw the vice-presidential spot that instead went to Sen. Joe Biden.

"I don't think it would have worked," Jacobson-Bennett said of the Obama-Clinton ticket that never was. "It would lessen her power politically — and I'd like to see her run again."

Jacobson-Bennett's husband, Dale Bennett, a Disney animator and registered Republican, voted earlier in the day.

"We usually cancel each other out, but I convinced him to vote my way on the propositions," said the ardent supporter of Proposition 2 and opponent of Proposition 8.

Prop. 2 would improve conditions for farm animals. Prop. 8 seeks to ban gay marriage in the state.

At one point, a voter shouted to a friend, "Starbucks after we vote!"

"There's a long line there, too," another yelled. The coffee chain — which has a small, busy store at the corner of Burbank and Van Nuys boulevards — was pouring free drinks for voters with the fortitude to brave two lines in one day.

Other polling places in the area were similarly inundated. Waits of an hour were reported at the Horace Heidt apartment complex on Magnolia Boulevard, and lines snaked out of the auditorium door at Chandler Elementary School, both in Sherman Oaks.

I roll into Starbucks a bit after 9. There's barely any line at all.

I ask for the venti drip, dark roast.

They actually have it.

The guy fills the cup, gives it to me, runs my Starbucks card through the register, I put in the half-and-half and I'm out.

And yes, it was good for me, too.

I'll let you, the reader, ponder.

I said it at 7 a.m.:

Placing Pike Place Roast, not just above all other light roasts but above all other kinds of drip coffee is Starbucks' jump the shark moment.

What Starbucks is really saying:

"Drip coffee is a very small part of our business, we have to dump a lot of unused coffee, and profits on drip coffee are small when compared to those of our other beverages. Therefore we can substitute not-very-clever marketing for taste and quality and hope that the coffee-drinking public buys it. If they don't, who cares? We'll save money on an unpopular product, have made our effort and can go back to pushing the espresso-based blended drinks that are our true profit center and passion."

Starbucks Coffee giving up on coffee: It's the company's jump the shark moment.

We were at the Third Street Promenade on Saturday and found ourselves at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Now there's a place that always has dark roast brewing ... and never mind that the average Coffee Bean light roast is way better than the average Starbucks light roast.

Cancel that. There is no other light roast at Starbucks other than Pike Place Roast.

Not that I care, since I always choose dark above light.

But if Coffee Bean stays committed to coffee — in a way that Starbucks is not, that says a lot.

It's funny, saying that Starbucks has abandoned coffee, the beverage. But it's pretty much true.

What I'm really saying: Placing Pike Place Roast, not just above all other light roasts but above all other kinds of drip coffee is Starbucks' jump the shark moment.

After weeks of laziness, I finally hooked up my Starbucks card to the free AT&T wireless Internet service available at many of the company's zillion stores.

The catch, such as it is, is that you must have a Starbucks card — one of those little gift-card-like things that can carry a balance. That card must have a balance, have been used recently ... and you get two consecutive hours of service:

Complimentary Wi-Fi for Starbucks customers When you register your Starbucks Card and use it at least once a month, you'll receive two consecutive hours a day of complimentary Wi-Fi, courtesy of AT&T.

Complimentary Wi-Fi for AT&T DSL customers
AT&Ts more than 12 million DSL customers already qualify for free Wi-Fi at their neighborhood Starbucks.

Competitive pricing for paid Wi-Fi
All other customers can receive two consecutive hours of Wi-Fi access for $3.99.

So if you already have AT&T broadband service, and if you live in the L.A. area, chances are good that you do, you can get the free Wi-Fi without even registering your card. (I have DSL Extreme, which uses AT&T's lines but its own routers and equipment, and thus doesn't qualify, but I figure two hours should do it for me.

For those hankering to know more about my experience from the technical side — and I know you do, especially you, Sharon Kaplan — I tested the broadband speed at this very Starbucks with the CNET Bandwidth Meter Speed Test and got the following results:

509.3 Kbps

That's not bad for 802.11b wireless. For comparison's sake, the average DSL connection promises bandwidth between 384 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps. My home connection used to hover around 1 Mbps but has been more 600 Kbps since an AT&T "repair" restored the connection when it was down, rendering it operable but slower.

But free and 509 Kpbs are totally acceptable things when grouped together.

And since this laptop, the venerable $15 Laptop, a 1999-vintage Compaq Armada 7770dmt running Puppy Linux 2.13 and the Seamonkey Web browser, has no battery (but curiously can accommodate two — one in the battery slot and a second in the CD/floppy slot), I needed electrical power and found it. Teat of Starbucks, I'm sucking on you pretty darned hard.

And in case you were wondering — and I know you were — they were out of dark roast when I reached the front of the line. The baristas were ready to make a fresh batch, but I'm tired of complaining and have resigned myself to a life marked by cup after cup of Pike Place Roast. I'm tired of waiting, tired of complaining, and free Wi-Fi is going a long way toward pacifying me.

Score one for Howard Schultz. I like free.

Today appears to be the day for Starbucks stores that are being shut down. That's buried in the comments over at Starbucks Gossip.

Supposedly there will be meetings today at the doomed Starbucks locations where employees will get the word.

For more on the Starbucks situation, go to this Starbucks Gossip post, which has links to the AP story, the Starbucks press release on the closures and the CFO's prepared statement.

I was over at the Canoga and Oxnard location today, and there's a bit of gallows humor afoot, at least on the customers' part, with a lot of "I hope this store doesn't close" kind of talk from the people in line to their favorite baristas.

And it is a nice crew over there, no doubt.

I have a cup of the Pike, and I'm not even going to bitch about it.

Starbucks, we need to talk.

After deciding that the "Coffee" portion of the name Starbucks Coffee was somehow an unimportant afterthought, and continuing a campaign of folly to replace your previous coffee choices with Pike Place Roast, I saw light at the end of a long, dark, watery tunnel.

Dark roasts would be brewed after noon at customer request. This after a period during which the worthless and weak Pike Place Roast (my opinion of the blend has dipped considerably of late) is the only brewed coffee offered during the afternoons.

Never mind that I seem to have trouble getting a dark roast in the morning on many if not most occasions at the various Starbucks locations I stop at during my travails.

Due to this dark-roast deficit, I've gone from, say three or four visits a week to Starbucks down to maybe one.

Let me be plain:

Your lack of coffee is driving me away.

Today I stopped at the Tampa Avenue and Victory Boulevard Starbucks in Reseda.

The line was long. Only two people were behind the counter. The wait was longer than five minutes.

I get to the front of the line. There's a dark roast on the board: Yukon. I like Yukon.

Me: "Can I have a venti drip dark with room?"

The barista goes to fill the cup.

A half-cup comes out.

Barista: "Would you be wiling to wait a few minutes until a fresh pot brews? It'll be free."

Me: "No thanks, just give me the Pikes."

She did end up charging me. I have no problem with that. I don't need to be getting free coffee. I need to be getting good coffee, and after a not-short wait in line, I don't need to be waiting — as I have at this location on more than two occasions — for them to make coffee.

I figured, maybe the Pike Place isn't as bad as I remembered it. At one point, I even said it's not as bad once it cools off.

Allow me to submit Pike Place Roast, as brewed on this day and at this location, for another review:

Horrible.

Howard Schultz, you can futz about the food, revel in your rock-star status and think you're saving the company.

If this Pike Place thing was your idea, just admit that it was a poor one and move on.

If the decision to abandon the drip-coffee business by further restricting the brewing of Starbucks' signature dark roasts was also your idea, just admit that it was a poor one and move on.

If these ideas were cooked up by other Starbucks executives and then OK'd by you, just admit that you made a mistake by willfully gutting your company's core product, do what needs to be done to fix the situation and move on.

You know, it ain't all that hard to make coffee, and I've been doing it more and more. Simone Schramm made a pot today, and I have a pretty good feeling that even though I bought the cheapest coffee in the biggest can I could find at Vons, that it holds up pretty damn well compared to this Pike Place travesty.

I feel bad for Pike Place Market, that iconic Seattle spot at which fish are tossed, for having its name cheapened by such a poor excuse for coffee.

Remember the House Blend? That's way better than Pikes. Even Breakfast Blend, which I'm not particularly fond of, is better. ANY dark roast offered by Starbucks is better.

Stop the bleeding, Howard Schultz.

You had a three-hour nationwide training session on how to make espresso, even though your company uses automatic machines to do so.

How about an eight-hour corporate meeting in Seattle.

Put this Pikes situation on the table.

Admit that Pike Place Blend doesn't measure up.

Start making good coffee again.

Do it for me.

Free WiFi is good, but it just another Starbucks Music, or scary-looking breakfast sandwich taking away from the core business.

Make the coffee. Just do it.

I got the link from Starbucks Gossip to a Portfolio magazine profile of returning Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

First of all, he hates the food. No argument there. He's not keen on turning Starbucks into a full-fledged record company. Another good move (diluting the product = bad).

Nothing new here, but it offers a bit of background on the state of Starbucks:

Starbucks is closing 100 underperforming stores and cutting way back--at least by its own exponential standards--on expansion in the U.S.  There's a super-duper new Swiss-made espresso machine, one promising mass-produced perfection. (It is also lower-slung, allowing baristas to make all-important eye contact with customers.) There's the Clover, an ingenious and expensive--$11,000 a pop--machine for French-pressing coffee by the cup. (So dazzled was Schultz by it that he bought the company.) And there's Pike Place Roast, a new blend designed to strengthen Starbucks in the world of drip coffee, where McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts are nipping at its heels. The blend's name--honoring the location of what has come to be known as Starbucks' flagship store--is a nod to the company's roots, and so is the packaging; it features Starbucks' originally zaftig, busty mermaid, which had been bowdlerized many years ago to placate American bluenoses.

Also addressed is the move from hand-pulled espresso to the automatic variety:

In his book, Schultz admits he was afraid that Starbucks could become "just another soulless big chain." It was highly symbolic in 1999 when he replaced the manual La Marzocco espresso machines with automatic behemoths. The reason, he says, wasn't efficiency but ergonomics: The old models caused repetitive stress injuries. Besides, he insists, the new machines are more reliable.

For many, though, the coffee has never been the same. "The taste of the espresso coming out of those new machines is pure crap," Double_Tall_Latte wrote on StarbucksGossip.com. "There's no crema. No sweetness. No depth." Not that many Starbucks patrons noticed. By now, many of the coffee snobs have gone elsewhere, replaced by teenyboppers determined to do anything to blunt, or obliterate, the taste of coffee.

It's a long, long interview ... read the whole thing if you dare.

A longer version of the Wall Street Journal story has appeared:

With the switch, stores stopped brewing a second coffee in the afternoon, when brewed coffee is less popular, to reduce waste, according to the company. Some customers also said it became more difficult for them to find bold coffees at Starbucks in the morning. The changes prompted some complaints from fans of Starbucks's more-robust blends.

"Because of your many requests for a bolder coffee choice throughout the day at Starbucks, we are bringing it back in the afternoon to many of those stores that sell lots of freshly brewed coffee all day long," Starbucks said in a message posted on its customer feedback Web site Tuesday. The company said it will brew a bolder variety for customers when they ask for it. "This will sometimes mean a small wait, but it will also give you the absolute freshest cup of coffee possible," the company said on the site.

"When they ask for it?" Again. It's Starbucks Coffee. Coffee.

They should just suck it up and make the damn coffee.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Starbucks has decided to stop offering only the light, weak Pike Place Blend and resume brewing "bolder" roasts.

This all I can get of the WSJ story:

By Janet Adamy

Starbucks Corp. is adding back bolder varieties of brewed coffee at some locations after replacing them with a smoother roast this spring.

In April, the Seattle coffee chain introduced a blend of brewed coffee called Pike Place roast and made it the default drip coffee at locations across ...

That's all I've got ... details forthcoming.

And to think I only complained about this yesterday.

I even had my recharged Starbucks card at the ready so I can potentially take advantage of the free wireless Internet offer from the big coffee company, should I ever be toting a laptop, find a power plug because all my batteries are dead, actually have the time to sit at Starbucks and use free WiFi ...

And I know it's 111 degrees outside in Woodland Hills.

But I still want coffee.

I want the Starbucks dark roast of the day. Not Pike Place Blend.

But the very friendly barista at Starbucks, corner of Oxnard Street and Canoga Avenue in Warner Center says, "No dark roast, only Pike."

She sees the look on my face.

She elaborates, "There no dark roast after 12 noon."

I reply: "Ever?"

It certainly seems to be so.

For now, anyway.

That's one way to make the Pike Place Roast sales soar: offer nothing else. Hey, if it worked for the Soviet Union, it just might work for Starbucks.

The friendly barista took pity on me and wouldn't charge me for my hot venti drip of Pikes on this even hotter day. (Thanks! ... but what are those corporate people smoking?)

I can only hope that this is somehow related to the hot weather and that all will be righted when the ambient air temperature dips below 100.

I direct the rest of this entry to Howard Schultz, returning CEO of Starbucks:

It's called Starbucks Coffee. So make me some coffee. The good stuff.

Meanwhile: in other news, my neighborhood Starbucks is about to get some competition in the form of a Coffee Bean kiosk in the Ralphs market directly across Burbank Boulevard in Van Nuys.

I bet they have dark roast. Lots of it.

Same Starbucks, different day, no dark roast.

Once again, the Canoga Avenue/Oxnard Street Starbucks had Pike Place and House -- no dark roasts.

I tried the House today, and it's better than Pike Place. House has a little more character.

So I go to Starbucks yesterday, Canoga Avenue and Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills, pretty much across the street from the Daily News. I was much kinder to Pike Place Roast than I should have been. It's pretty weak. I mean that literally. But there's always the dark roast of the day.

Not so much.

My choices were Pike Place and House Blend.

No dark roast.

Starbucks, are you trying to kill me? This isn't going to help profits.

Actually, it is, because the very helpful barista suggested that I add a shot of espresso. That made it go down better, except for the fact that my $1.90 coffee now cost $2.50.

I had my first cup of Starbucks' new Pike Place Roast coffee -- which instead of becoming a rotating blend is meant to be ground and served every day, all day, at every Starbucks across the known universe.

My initial impression, when the too-hot liquid first hit my palate, could be summed up in two words: worthless and weak. OK, that's three words, but "and" doesn't really count.

But upon reflection, during which time my venti Pike Place Roast cooled somewhat, it grew on me just a little bit. I'll call it a yeoman's blend that could stand to be a few notches stronger on the scale of light to bold.

First of all, don't let the cool shirts the baristas are wearing fool you. The word "Bold" on the shirt in no way reflects what Pike Place Roast is about. Look at the picture above. It's not billed as "bold." It's called "smooth," which is code for light and airy.

When I go to Starbucks, which is pretty damn often, I always request the dark roast drip coffee, because I want it to taste like coffee.

Pike Place Roast is like a less-cloying Breakfast Blend, the go-to choice for those who can't take Starbucks' heavily roasted hard stuff.

It's coffee, all right. But it won't inspire caffeine-fueled odes to its otherworldly powers. It's no Kenya, Ethiopia, Verona or Yukon. And if Starbucks is in any way depending on Pike Place Roast to save the company from its own lack of authenticity -- if that in fact can be done -- they're barking up the wrong brew.

What Starbucks needs to do is to fan out and start drinking lots of coffee at places that really know how to make it -- and I'm sure Mr. Howard Schultz knows exactly where they are. All they have to do is find the best places and then do it exactly the way they do.

But Starbucks is doing more to win your loyalty, and for me it's totally working: If you have one of those Starbucks cards that you either got as a gift or bought yourself -- and to which you can always add money to keep 'em going -- holders of cards that have been registered with Starbucks (do it on the Web) are now entitled to the following sweet, sweet freebies:

• Free syrup and milk options for your beverage
• Free brewed coffee refills (thank you, deity of choice)
• Free tall beverage with whole bean purchase (aren't they already doing that?)

All I'm giddy-like-a-schoolgirl excited about are the free drip refills. It means there is a god. Or a recession. I'm not sure.

Interesting fact: The large coffee cup from Coffee Bean appears to be smaller than the "venti" cup from Starbucks. Also, a venti Starbucks drip coffee is a few cents cheaper than a large at Coffee Bean. Just pointing this out. Half the time, I go to the local Coffee Bean, which is behind the parking gate at a local office park, because I know there's never a long line. I suspect Starbucks is doing a lot better, if only because of location.

Caveat: I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and Starbucks had the stones to open -- and then make hand-over-fist freakin' money -- in many, many locations that other operators, both independents and chains, still won't touch. I give them a whole lot of credit for that, even as I nit-pick at why my local 'Bucks is too damn small, and other such things.

Verdict: I'll stick with the dark roast of the day, but if you thing Starbucks drip coffee is too strong for you, have them pour a Pike Place Roast for you and see how you like it.

Suggestion: The free refills alone make it imperative that drip coffee drinkers get a Starbucks card and register it on the Web site immediately. I've heard rumors that card-holders will also get free WiFi access in the near future.

Additional caveat: I just hope this doesn't make Starbucks more overrun than it already is, although I figure they're hoping for just the opposite so they can continue on their growth trajectory and further their quest for world domination. World coffee domination, that is.