02-14-2008, 09:02 PM
[quote mrbigstuff]Yeah, the coffee brewing is done automatically, so their beans are to blame, not the baristas. The people who work there are only working with the raw ingredients they are given.
Probably both are to blame. Any equipment they use that's on auto-pilot, or 'automatic", is still handled and managed by trained or under-trained staff. A computer, for example, is only as good as the person using it. I was sad to see the process get THAT automated to begin with. Probably a reflection of the mass hiring they had to do, and realistic expectations about training all of them--with high turnover, too--the craft of making espresso beverages and consistently well-brewed coffee, day after day, in thousands of locations.
And yeah, the beans are to blame. I think they do still import and roast quality beans. But by the time they get to the retail end of the chain, they're too stale. They're improperly stored and handled somewhere along way, in the giant commercial pipeline. They're not nearly as fresh as they were when Starbucks was smaller, more competitive, more uncompromising about quality.
I hate to sound like the "old guy" (and a former employee of the local, once very modest collection of individual Starbucks stores in Seattle, I know, I know, I do this nostalgia thing here from time to time) but I swear, ten or fifteen years ago, Starbucks coffee tasted GOOD! It was the premium source of quality coffee, with a bright future.
That's now a distant memory. Even five years ago, it tasted pretty good! Before they became a Three-Ring-Circus Retail Giant, and serving decent coffee (not just the sugary frothy nonsense beverages that makes them more like a yuppie ice-cream parlor, but actual good black coffee) was fast becoming secondary, an undervalued, neglected side-business.
I'll be interested to see if Schultz takes this competitive approach to other areas besides training, to reclaim the fundamentals they lost along the road to mega-corporate success. If they just focus on improving their original mission, their main product, coffee---improving how the coffee they serve to customers actually tastes---that would be the right place to begin.
They still have a competitive position. Improvement is within easy reach. I predict by the end of 2008, his efforts to recapture the fundamentals will show some positive results, and their stock will be up.
Wall Street thinks so, too, the analysis is that coffee is an "affordable luxury", people tend to linger in coffee shops longer and consume more when the economy is bad than when it is good.
Fritz, that was funny...your tech manager asking for that dessert beverage...what did you expect him to ask for, Chock-Full-of-Nuts? At some steam plant in New Jersey? Or Maxwell House "Special Blend"? Heck boy, I remember when the only place in Manhattan you could get an actual espresso was Little Italy, or Greenwich Village! ...and that was in THE 1990s!
He ordered a...what? a "quatro vente frappiccino?" What difference does it make what kind of "coffee" you put in a beverage like that anyway? It's all foam and ice and sugar and syrup and milk and candy, with a fake Italian name. He could just as easily sent you to Baskin and Robbins!
Probably both are to blame. Any equipment they use that's on auto-pilot, or 'automatic", is still handled and managed by trained or under-trained staff. A computer, for example, is only as good as the person using it. I was sad to see the process get THAT automated to begin with. Probably a reflection of the mass hiring they had to do, and realistic expectations about training all of them--with high turnover, too--the craft of making espresso beverages and consistently well-brewed coffee, day after day, in thousands of locations.
And yeah, the beans are to blame. I think they do still import and roast quality beans. But by the time they get to the retail end of the chain, they're too stale. They're improperly stored and handled somewhere along way, in the giant commercial pipeline. They're not nearly as fresh as they were when Starbucks was smaller, more competitive, more uncompromising about quality.
I hate to sound like the "old guy" (and a former employee of the local, once very modest collection of individual Starbucks stores in Seattle, I know, I know, I do this nostalgia thing here from time to time) but I swear, ten or fifteen years ago, Starbucks coffee tasted GOOD! It was the premium source of quality coffee, with a bright future.
That's now a distant memory. Even five years ago, it tasted pretty good! Before they became a Three-Ring-Circus Retail Giant, and serving decent coffee (not just the sugary frothy nonsense beverages that makes them more like a yuppie ice-cream parlor, but actual good black coffee) was fast becoming secondary, an undervalued, neglected side-business.
I'll be interested to see if Schultz takes this competitive approach to other areas besides training, to reclaim the fundamentals they lost along the road to mega-corporate success. If they just focus on improving their original mission, their main product, coffee---improving how the coffee they serve to customers actually tastes---that would be the right place to begin.
They still have a competitive position. Improvement is within easy reach. I predict by the end of 2008, his efforts to recapture the fundamentals will show some positive results, and their stock will be up.
Wall Street thinks so, too, the analysis is that coffee is an "affordable luxury", people tend to linger in coffee shops longer and consume more when the economy is bad than when it is good.
Fritz, that was funny...your tech manager asking for that dessert beverage...what did you expect him to ask for, Chock-Full-of-Nuts? At some steam plant in New Jersey? Or Maxwell House "Special Blend"? Heck boy, I remember when the only place in Manhattan you could get an actual espresso was Little Italy, or Greenwich Village! ...and that was in THE 1990s!
He ordered a...what? a "quatro vente frappiccino?" What difference does it make what kind of "coffee" you put in a beverage like that anyway? It's all foam and ice and sugar and syrup and milk and candy, with a fake Italian name. He could just as easily sent you to Baskin and Robbins!