[strogonoff]

Spot on. Starbucks in any country feels radically differently designed compared to a local cafe, where you feel the pressure to drink your cup promptly and rotate out (how intensely you feel that pressure depends on the owner and your own perceptiveness).

This also means in places where quality local coffeeshops start to become alternatives for “hangout spaces”, Starbucks may offer more intricate coffee options and reluctantly compete on that front. However, that’s rare.

Some of the true equivalents are chain coffeeshops of South Korea. They serve equivalently average-to-bad coffee.

Of note, during recent lockdown measures in Seoul, these franchised coffeeshops (including Starbucks) were singled out among all food and drink establishments as the only ones forbidden from letting customers sit in at all. I suspect it’s because they are effectively the “third place” for many people, so the government considered them a major vector.

Some branches more or less shut down as a result, since take-outs are just not worth it with that quality of coffee.