Starbucks on the decline

I was reading the paper the other day (well the online version) when I noticed an article about the declining fortunes of Starbucks.

In the US you can sit in a Starbucks branch and look out the windows and see another branch. Seems they have over saturated the market and are now paying the price. and the coffee is crap and over priced.

I was discussing this with a coffee conisour friend and he was telling me they roast the crap out of the beans so that even the 12 year old 'barista' behind the counter can pour a 'good' coffee.

I hate to name drop, but it reminds me of a story Britney Spears sound engineer once told me. In the US he would drink Starbucks coffee, not because it was good, but because it was consistent.

One of the things the article brought up was that places like MacDonalds are now raising their game in the coffee market and people no longer need to go to starbucks and pay a fortune for a decent cup of coffee.

I was in the airport this morning for a little domestic jaunt and noticed the massive queue at Maccas. Most of these people were getting coffees even though there are perfectly good and not to expensive coffee outlets all around them.

Its interesting to see what we consider to be the big fast food joints branching out in to other directions such as the McCafe concept or the Gloria Jeans of the world who basically copied the Starbucks model but customised it to fit with the Australian cafe culture.

I guess if nothing else Startbucks made everyone lift their game and raised the standard of cofffee in these more traditional outlets where it was only ever an add on and was mostly a drip-o-lator that had sat for too long and boiled itself into a bitter mud.