After posting my last little blurb on James Howard Kunstler I did a little more research and found some interesting interviews he’s given in the last few years. He was asked about his opinion on Starbucks and he gave one of the best, and simplest, answers I’ve ever heard on the subject:
Starbucks does what it does pretty well. But it's not hard to run a coffee shop and make it attractive. In the small town where I live, we have a Starbucks, but also a locally owned shop that's probably more popular. This local guy is competing on a quality basis with a chain and he's doing just as well.
Starbucks provides something very simple, in short supply: agreeable public space. They provide a nice place for you to hang out, and you pay an excessive to ridiculously high price for their coffee product, for occupying space in their business. You pay $3.50 for their stupid coffee concoction, but you stay at their table for an hour and a half. There are so few places that Americans can go, especially real public space, not a mall, so little real public space, that if you put in this artificial substitute, it's wildly successful. Starbucks is selling a public gathering place. Coffee is the enabling mechanism.
It’s an interesting thought to ponder - is Starbucks a successful coffee shop or a successful public forum? I would imagine that it started as a place to get decent coffee but has since morphed into the nouveau Usonian pub we know today. Actually, I think I’ll start calling Starbucks the “Usonian Piazza” – our new proxy for meaningful public interaction.
Having lived in Italy I can attest to the social function of the traditional piazza as well as the coffee shop. The piazza is a social gathering space, the coffee shop is a caffeine delivery mechanism. In the absence of the former we have co-opted the latter as the most suitable substitute. In Italy you walk into a coffee shop, order an espresso, dump in a spoonful of sugar, knock it back in about 10 seconds and head out the door. If you want a more leisurely form of caffeine delivery, you make your way to a café located in (you guessed it) the piazza.
I guess it is the peculiar nature of American capitalism to transform the enjoyment of “public” space into numbers, profit and greed - for there should be no enjoyment left un-merchandised.
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"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around."
- G.K. Chesterton
- G.K. Chesterton
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3 comments:
Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been 2 weeks since my last confession. I went to Starbucks 6 times, twice right before church. Like a politician in a toilet stall, I too am a classic self loather. My old walk to work of about 20 blocks took me past no less than 3 Starbucks. I drank @ work, so I kept going. But in my free time I’m always on the lookout for one. I don’t stay; my wife doesn’t drink coffee, and is not a fan of the smell on me. So I’m just glad to get my fix. So even though on a chemical addiction level I need Doctor Feel Good, he’s not always the one to make me feel all right. The Co-Opt of public space by Corporation Marketing Toward Lifestyle Lie or CMTL is another of the fleece that is being pulled over our eyes. Let’s not talk about it logically though, I prefer the voice of the modern Shakespearian Fool…the Conspiracy Theorist cliché burnout.
Yeah man it’s like they want to control you man. They give away the control juice in a fake public space you dig. And if you ever try to say something they can ask you to leave. No body wants the sheep angry man. It’s just a system of control, you know. It’s just like Noam Ch…. (Lone gunman takes him out.)
The body is removed, and we all go back to our half-caps and talking about American Idols.
I have only been in a Starbuck's once, in an airport, and don't remember anything much about the experience except that the coffee was unusually expensive and not notably tasty, along with the sensation I wasn't quite their demographic. It wasn't an age thing so much as the fact that I am from Flyover Country, and Starbuck's oozes yuppie urban casual.
I want coffee flavored coffee (as Dennis Leary calls it). Joe. That's all. Coffee just doesn't qualify as a hobby for me. It's not something I think about until we run out and have to buy more.
The observances about the public space are very cogent. We need real neighborhood pubs, though, and not the forced casualness of mass-produced low-cal culture substitutes.
Clark, as always, you manage to put the pleasantly humorous disaffected spin on my ramblings and for that I am humbly in your debt. Tell Janet to keep up the good work, not only can she smell sarcasm a mile off she's quite good with the output as well. Perhaps it is best to let sleeping Starbucks lie lest they further expand their kingdom into the curiously lacking "public" (read "non-corporate") sphere.
Tim: I'm with you, I generally make better coffee at home. But I will admit to going every once in a while to get some fancy flavored concoction and enjoy a pleasantly quiet space to read a mag or paper. Luckily, we just had a new mom & pop type coffee joint open up seconds from the house that I'm much happier to frequent. Not quite Starbucks in the decor department (I know, not saying much) but it's a nice place for reading or a game of chess.
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