AN OPEN LETTER TO STARBUCKS
Starbucks Colchester
20.5.2011
Dear Mr Bucks,
I recently headed in to Starbucks in Colchester (est. as far back as about 2006 as my recollection goes, we were late adopters, being one of the last to get with 'the program' and jump on the bandwagon... you know what I mean)... don't ask me why, every now and then I get the urge to worship at the temple of egregious capitalism. So this week marked Bob Dylan's 70th birthday, and in order to celebrate it, I guessed, what better place than my local coffee house (right?). It was in these very coffee houses (OK not Starbucks), in New York, that the young Robert Zimmerman heard the folk music that would so influence him and in turn the pop music of the 20th century. I wanted to see what today's young scene was like.
Starbucks in Colchester are cursed with a very bland building – not helped by the fact that they've painted it.... well, coffee. Various shades of coffee, to be exact. Also there is not too much artwork on the walls, probably because only allowing Starbucks-sanctioned corporate artwork on the walls is store policy or somefink, I dunoo.
My first suggestion is that you do something about this, Mr Starbuck. It is a coffee house, we get the idea. Not every piece of art on the walls has to be a tastefully done black and white portrait of a cup of coffee or an ethnic-looking tableau depicting indigenous folk digging coffee beans out of the ground in the jungle. You could,even, I dunno, involve a bit of local colour in your décor if this isn't too much of an old-fashioned idea. Colchester has many notable old buildings which you could put up moody black and white photos of, like the ruins of St. Botolphs priory or the evocative gothic Victorian town hall. OK so somebody dropped the ball on the new Orwellian monstrosity that's going up by town station, but some people like that kind of brutalism. It's just an idea.
Obviously I am not proposing to put Banksy's on the walls or bright coloured graffiti like some of these obnoxious new coffee houses do. That's fine for them. Starbucks, however, is a classy joint. Heaven knows, I am not trying to question the positioning of your brand (that bizarre two-tailed mermaid is the first thing you see when you come in, after all)... it's just that after too much joe the whole place starts to feel like a bizarre nightmare. There was a promotion on this week, and the 'barista' sold me up to a whole double serving of frappacino coffee with whipped cream and caramel. 'Do you want whipped cream?' he asked me, and of course like an idiot I did, because otherwise what was I paying for except a bit of cold coffee with some ice in it? So I was a little surprised with my drink, when it arrived, being more like an ice-cream than a caffeine-y beverage. I would hate to think of the calorie content of this thing. Speaking of contents, I don't know how much espresso went into that, but it was a lot, which is probably what brought on the strange... brown-ness that came on immediately after.
The clientele of the place were mostly in their 30s, nothing wrong there, but many of them were in shorts and looked like they were trying to dress much younger. Modern fashion is so hopeless (it's not your fault, Mr Starbucks you're just a symptom, not the cause). Most of them sat down and left within 15 minutes of coming. I noticed there was a chess board of squares marked out on the table top, but no pieces. It was a shame that none of them would ever have time to have a game. This, then, was the fast food of the coffee world.
As for the problem of what to do about your premises, I think I have the answer Mr Starbuck. The old Co-operative building is empty when our post office is finally evicted on June 6th, and I wouldn't mind betting that you, in your wisdom, have already noticed this. I would bet that whatever new department store moves in there will have the space for a nice new coffee franchise when this happens. When it does, I would guess that the problem of having one pokey (by your standards) premises in Colchester will not be a problem much longer. Costa already have three, not that they need them -when everyone else is out of business, they can just close the other two or whichever aren't profitable enough. It's called cluster-fucking. But then you knew that, Mr Starbuck.
One further suggestion: while I was drowning in my sea of froth my enjoyment of the syrupy beverage and syrupy jazz constantly piping in was somewhat spoiled by the repetitive sounding of an alarm clock somewhere in the background. If your staff are so badly retarded that they can't even make a cup of coffee without one without fucking up, I suggest you replace them and get a bunch of new ones who you actually pay a decent wage to.
Finally I just wanted to thank you, Mr Starbuck, for bringing your weird two-assed mascot and all her attendant shit to our town, and to say that it's only a shame that everything else about your store was so fucking half-assed. Please keep doing what you're doing. Some day, all coffee shops will be made like this.
-F
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