[kop316]

My biggest pet peeve with them is they seem to hurt local coffee shops. You can find starbucks almost ubitquiously, but it's very difficult now to find a local shop ouside of a larger city. I don't think that is a coincedence (I also thought I read an article about their strong arming tactis to local shops, but I cannot readily find it, so maybe I was imaging it and combining it with a confirmation bias).

Also, their drinks are very sugary and VERY calorie packed. I personally think starbucks on average is worse for someone versus a Coke/Soda/Pop:

https://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/867c147d5dcc46e9af...

Additionally, I don't think their actual coffee tastes very good (granted, this is my preference). Even the lightest roast tastes burnt. Starbucks was the reason I thought I did not like french roast for the longest time. When I actually tried a different brand, I was surprised at how much I actually liked it.

[perl4ever]

>it's very difficult now to find a local shop ouside of a larger city

I'm skeptical. How hard have you looked? Or what do you consider a "larger city"? Towns and cities of 80-100K people near where I live seem to have independent coffee shops. Sometimes across the street from Starbucks.

[cocktailpeanuts]

Here's my point of view.

You talk about high calorie, but I never drink sugar stuff there. I only get Americano, so it's unfair to criticize them for things they make available when there's plenty of options if you want to stay healthy. It's your choice, it's not like they only sell unhealthy stuff. Just to be clear, a lot of popular hipster cafes sell sugary stuff too.

Also, their Americano tastes great. In fact I would rate it as one of the top grade even comparing to all the NY & SF hipster coffee stores I frequent.

Next, they are the only ones who provide large sized coffee (Venti) bar none. I drink a lot so I really hope other cafes provide large sized coffee but I have yet to find any non franchise coffee shop which does that. All the hipster coffee shops tend to only serve small sized coffee.

Also, Starbucks gives you infinite refill if you're their gold member, which is pretty easy status to achieve if you're a regular coffee drinker.

Also, Starbucks is the only coffee chain which reliably provides free wifi access. A lot of the local coffee places don't provide wifi at all, or don't like it when you try to use wifi for a long time.

I really want to support "local coffee shops" but all these things keep me from stop going to starbucks.

If I think about it, I go to starbucks about 50% of the time and the rest 50% I go to the other local cafes. But really, they don't give me high enough incentive to go.

This is what capitalism is, Starbucks provides a product which makes the quality of my life higher compared to other local cafes, so I have no way but to go there more often. It has nothing to do with an evil organization depriving the nice local cafes of their opportunity to compete.

[brailsafe]

The refill and acceptance of just hanging out for hours doing work are some of the benefits of Starbucks, but as someone who worked there as a barista, only the blonde espresso & coffee are palatable. It's of course subjective, but the rest of their coffee is usually gross.

For other coffee shops, why don't you just get a smaller Americano? it's just espresso shots + hot water, so a smaller Americano will be less diluted but the same amount of caffeine and better flavour. (amount of espresso varies from shop to shop, but you can just ask for another shot or two)

[cocktailpeanuts]

> For other coffee shops, why don't you just get a smaller Americano? it's just espresso shots + hot water, so a smaller Americano will be less diluted but the same amount of caffeine and better flavour. (amount of espresso varies from shop to shop, but you can just ask for another shot or two)

You probably know this already but Starbucks lets you get extra shot americano for Venti. So you have the option of getting more quantity AND still not get diluted. You don't get that from other cafes because they don't even provide large cups to begin with.

> only the blonde espresso & coffee are palatable. It's of course subjective, but the rest of their coffee is usually gross.

Yeah I am not saying Starbucks makes the best coffee in the world for every category, I'm just saying at least for Americano (which is basically just Espresso + water) it's actually on my top ranking, I know a lot of hipsters will throw stones at me for this but I personally find Starbucks americano much better than the hyped up blue bottle coffee.

[brailsafe]

Right that's what I was getting at. At coffee shops that don't have 20oz cups, I just get the 16oz with the same amount of shots as the Venti at SB would have, which is 4. I find that I usually get bored and don't finish the 20oz unless I'm driving long distance anyway, but with the 16oz I get the same amount of caffeine, flavour, and actually finish it. It's $3.50 CAD at my local shop to get one with 4 shots in 16oz or 20oz, but only $0.50 more for each additional.