Up in Ontario

That Starbucks Feeling

There is a Starbucks coffee shop about 100m from the front door of the office building where I work at The Day Job. Almost every day I visit this shop for a coffee and almost every day I am surprised by a new variation on ordering a coffee. I am not alone in my wonder at the complexity of Starbucks coffee orders. Conversations I have participated in prove this. Now someone has built a web page dedicated to listing and explaining all the potential variations of ordering coffee at Starbucks. And it is quite something.

Starbucks Observation One

Every item for sale at Starbucks is priced at its highest possible point.

I have no evidence for this, but I believe that Starbucks performs extensive price-sensitivity testing and targets their pricing as high as they can and no higher, at that precise point just before customers start to feel abused.

Here in Vancouver you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Starbucks. We are slaves to the chain. Catchet exists for those carrying their logoed cups. The scene in the movie Best in Show where the two horrifying yuppies tell the story of meeting each other in Starbuckses across the street from each other; that scene was inspired by the reality of Vancouver's Starbucks density. That corner exists at Thurlow and Robson.

(Speaking of having no evidence of this but believe it nonetheless, Jason Kottke has a wonderful question posted on his website: 'What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?' The responses are wonderful and the question provides the basis for an excellent parlour game. A hat tip to Kottke as well for the link to the list of Starbucks drinks.)

Starbucks Observation Two

There is an almost perfectly indirect relationship between the complexity of someone's coffee order at Starbucks and how much power they feel they have in the world at the moment they make the order.

I am beginning to believe, with nothing but anecdotal evidence, that the great allure of Starbucks for so many is the implicit notion that we can make the barista do whatever we want with that espresso machine and paper cup. The more complex our order, the more we're exercising ourselves, our frustration, our sense of injustice that we're not more recognized in the world, our sense of entitlement. Ergo, the downtrodden middle manager or office drone orders up the venti, no-whip, half decaf, extra shot, long, dry, non-fat, extra-hot latte, with a twist of lemon. (Nod to Steve Martin, L.A. Story) Does this jive with your experience of the coffee-ordering process at Starbucks? The complexity of the ordering is vindication and motivation at once for those not receiving their rightful respect / love / money / fawning / etc.

Come to think of it, (Hey!) most service-oriented companies exist to fill this need. The real growth in the neighbourhoods I walk through every day is in just these types of services: manicure / pedicure, spas, fancy bakeries, high-end toiletries, mix and match yogaesque lifestyles, doggy toy stores (because your pet can help with your entitlements too). The hard goods or service is just the excuse for the real transaction.

Digression
An imp of a comedian from Newfoundland named Ron James does a bit about walking into a Starbucks in L.A., paying twenty dollars for two coffees, and thinking to himself as he watched the spectacle of relaying orders and rigid terminology, that 'Jesus lordy, this is what the world would be like if Hitler had won.'