Without Voice » Food

Slowbucks

shawn — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:19:54 +0000

White chocolate mochas are a vice of mine. I don’t even like coffee but all too often, you’ll find me in line at Starbucks giving in to temptation. When a company has become as prevalent as Starbucks, it’s hard to imagine what it was like before it arrived. It’s excessive proliferation is the punchline of numerous jokes. However, if you read any business news sites, you’re bound to come across regular articles talking about the decline of Starbucks. ”It spread too fast, too far”, “overpriced coffee is not suited for the down economy”, etc. Declining profits and stiff competition are frequently cited as the reasons for their fall from grace. And while I think growing threat of Green Mountain Coffee and McDonalds expanding their coffee products are a 1-2 punch that anyone would struggle to compete against, it seems to me the real problem with Starbucks is Starbucks itself.

I remember reading a whole article in Forbes or some other similar magazine about the changes Starbucks was going to implement to expand their core business of selling just coffee. They had several distinct strategies for continuing their amazing growth trend – 1) Grow their music and entertainment relationship; 2) Serve food, such as breakfast sandwiches; 3) Adopt new cappuccino machines that make a “perfect” cup of coffee, every time; 4) get turnaround time for customers at 3 minutes.

I can only speak anecdotally of course, but there is little doubt in my mind that Starbucks has gone downhill and I think it’s due to a failure of each of their business strategies. The first, the entertainment business, is being scaled back as it isn’t having as much success as they were hoping. The second and the third are directly related to the fourth — the amount of time to get a coffee from Starbucks has skyrocketed. The new machines are slower and the staff is now too busy warming up prepackaged sandwiches to run the machines anyway. My visits now range from 10 minutes all the way up to a half-hour… which is insane for a convenience. Or rather, what once was a convenience and is now just a bad habit to kick. And that, for me, is why Starbucks has a steep hill to climb if they want to maintain their brand as it is today.

Girl scouts are evil

shawn — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:55:05 +0000

The Girl Scouts corporation should be banned for unfair tactics.

Yes, I placed an order

Safeway Groupie

shawn — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:31:04 +0000

While there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner, there hadn’t been one on my immediate route to work until a few weeks ago. This particular Starbucks is one of the in-grocery store stores but unlike the majority of these mini-Starbucks, this one has consistently created a quality White Chocolate Mocha. Perhaps a bit too good as I got “busted” when I went in one morning with Christina and the barrista girls called me out: “Hey! How have you been? You haven’t been here in a few days? White Chocolate Mocha, right?” After getting a wry grin from Christina, I explained to her that stopping here was perfect as I can also do a little grocery shopping for my day-to-day office groceries. It’s certainly better than running across the street from my office to the overpriced 7-11.

Another Safeway nearby has a gas station attached to it that provides a discount for the “club-card” holders. If I can get my on-the-commute Safeway to install a gas station as well, it would be the perfect grocery store. As Christina told me this morning, I’ve turned into a Safeway groupie.

The Chipotle “B” Team

shawn — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:18:56 +0000

Ran over to Chipotle for lunch today. Chipotle has been expanding all over the place and I have a feeling it’s starting to have a detrimental effect on their business. I used to joke that I moved to Reston Town Center just because I could walk to the nearby Chipotle. The food is good, service is fast, and the price is right. That said, soon after I moved into my current house in Fairfax, they put a new Chipotle in nearby… but not, unfortunately, close enough to walk. For whatever reason, the service at my new Chipotle is markedly slower than any other Chipotle I’ve ever visited. I’ve spent 45 minutes waiting in what the same line would have taken 10-15 minutes max at the Reston Chipotle. This doesn’t seem to be an isolated aberration as they recently also put one across the street from my office — the one I went to this afternoon. Unfortunately, the staff at this Chipotle seem to come from the same vein as the ones from my Fairfax Chipotle as the line moves at a snails pace. I’m starting to suspect that there are a limited number of Chipotle people and they’ve now had to resort to the “B” teams to staff their new locations.