Starbucks Gone

[Lucky Al]

an ordinary starbucks coffee anywhere tastes fine!

[offshore1]

Starbucks is having trouble all over, not just in Oz.

[Grooter]

I always do a double shot ladies

[Lucky Al]

When my girl was studying in Seattle, I visited her five times and spent a total of about six months there. My girl lived in the University District (or U-district) and walked to the University of Washington every morning. On the way to school we always passed a Starbucks and a coffee shop called Cafe Allegro. Sometimes I bought an espresso from Starbucks, and sometimes I bought an espresso from Cafe Allegro, depending on which side of the street we were walking on. They tasted the same and were both good coffees. I hate sitting or spending more than a few minutes in any kind of cafe or coffee shop, so I can't say anything about the feel of either place, but if I had to say anything I guess I'd say the colours in Cafe Allegro were earthier and the people behind the counter older (and quite possibly earthier). Lots more flyers were stuck up everywhere in Cafe Allegro, too.

I just looked for information about Cafe Allegro online and came across this:

The Cafe Allegro was opened in May of 1975 by founder, Dave Olsen. It was the first espresso coffeehouse in all of Seattle and continues to be by far the oldest. The Last Exit in the U-district started serving espresso shortly after the Allegro opened, but it has been gone for many years now. The Cafe Allegro was the original wholesale customer of a small Seattle shop that was selling fresh-roasted, gourmet coffee beans plus brewing and roasting accessories in the early '70s. That roaster was, of course, Starbucks!

http://www.cafeallegromusic.com/History.htm

[Nick Carroll]

Do you reckon Starbucks pulling out of Aus is bringing home what people are saying as far as, When our Mining runs out we will be a second rate country with no ability to profit.

Is this the beginning of the end of the "Lucky Country".

Are we Gonski's, Will we become 3rd world once the Mining and Resources are gone? Just look at our Diminishing Medical System, Petrol Prices, Housing Pressure etc.

Waddya Reckon?

No we are not gonskis. Starbucks's corporate judgement is not a reflection of the long term viability of the Australian economy...merely a reflection of their own incapacity to handle growth. (They closed 600 stores in North America too.)

There's 500 years' worth of the planet's entire black coal needs in the Hunter/Sydney basin seams alone. Many hundreds of years' worth of iron ore in the northwest.

Yet mining is just a thick slab of icing on the Australian economic cake. The texture of that cake and how it's baked has changed radically in the past 40 years and it's a safe bet that it'll look a lot different in another 40.

Our biggest national risk lies in getting "stuck": refusing the chances we have to innovate, to try new things, to make use of smart kids, hard-working immigrant families, small but energetic scientific research and development, all that gear. Australia gets "stuck" now and then but it always seems to shake off the crap and get back on the frontlines. Our human capital, not our mineral resources, is our greatest strength.

[ric_vidal]

The texture of that cake and how it's baked has changed radically in the past 40 years and it's a safe bet that it'll look a lot different in another 40.

After a two year visit to the United States, Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy . . .

[still here]

The "human capital" is the problem :
- too few in Aus. = too small an economy
- living wage too high = non competitive with the emerging Chinese and Indian economies .
- I think it's arrogant to assume we can be the "clever nation" . What makes us smarter than an indian speaking 3 languages , with a solid tertiary education in computer studies who's putting himself through a marketing course at night as he works the call center for Dell etc.

Lucky country I hope ! Thank gosh for the coal and I think the far North West could be a new bread basket .

[Lucky Al]

speaking of spending dollars on overhyped shite, they've recently started selling coopers in the supermarkets here in hanoi. i used to love that beer, but if it's going international and selling in vietnam for $4 a bottle i'll pass. bloody australians and their cultural imperialism!

[boogaloo]

an ordinary starbucks coffee anywhere tastes fine!

I was in Tokyo earlier this year and had breakfast at a Starbuck's ... and a plain espresso (double shot) that any Sydney cafe would have been proud to serve up.

Only time I've ever encountered really good coffee in Japan.

Judging by my recent 'Starbucks experience' in the USA, you blokes were just lucky. MS boogaloo and I were there for 7 weeks, in 8 states, and when there was no viable alternative we went to Starbucks. The espresso was always bitter, and we ended up getting macchiatos because a little bit of milk helped. But each time we had to explain what a macchiato was, because a Starbucks 'macchiato' is a coffee with caramel flavouring added.

Starbucks isn't actually a coffee shop. Most of their drinks don't contain any coffee.

[Lucky Al]

speaking of coffee shops, up the street from our place there's a beer shop (quan bia), where all they have in the way of drinks is beer. i learned yesterday that once you've become a regular it's acceptable to address the woman who runs the place as 'wife'.

[Nick Carroll]

The "human capital" is the problem :
- too few in Aus. = too small an economy
- living wage too high = non competitive with the emerging Chinese and Indian economies .
- I think it's arrogant to assume we can be the "clever nation" . What makes us smarter than an indian speaking 3 languages , with a solid tertiary education in computer studies who's putting himself through a marketing course at night as he works the call center for Dell etc.

Lucky country I hope ! Thank gosh for the coal and I think the far North West could be a new bread basket .

Very small view I think still here.

Size of economy is a red herring. Countries have never needed to be Big in order to work well. Big is as much a hindrance as a help -- something China et al may well find to their cost in years to come.

It's not a question of arrogance. In the past 100 years Australian scientists and businesses have consistently come up with great ideas across numerous fields of human endeavour and there's no reason to think they're suddenly gonna stop. We're in an extraordinary position to be creative with the challenges posed by worldwide energy wastage -- partly because we've spent 180 years trying to learn to live with the El Nino cycle.

What you do is play to your strengths and strengthen your weaknesses. Not whine about imaginary disasters or find excuses not to do your best.

[2nd Reef]

I saw the word macchiato and as this is a surfing forum I immediately thought of Rob Machado and thought that a Rob Macchiato might be a funny name for a drink. I searched for more surfing oriented names for drinks. Kelly Latte is semi-funny.

That was all I could come up with....

[Lucky Al]

i have an idea to stop energy wastage: stop global trading. shipping wastes energy. let's eat and use shit we make in our towns. actually, i read that somewhere. but ideas are free-floating, and if it came to me why the hell not express it!

[2nd Reef]

Mark Cappuccino?

[Lucky Al]

i hope you realise 2nd reef that kelly is tracking all your posts! (the proof is in the padang-padang.) he'll google himself tonight and come straight to what you just wrote about him, and next week we'll watch him make a million bucks selling the kelly latte to starbucks. you're so careless sometimes, reefer! i don't know how we're going to make this mag of ours work.

[2nd Reef]

What you don't know Al is that Kelly and I are star-crossed brothers.

11/02/72

Both of us.

He'll look after me.

[Lucky Al]

i knew that, but i forgot. anyway, now i'm feeling so bad, so bitter, so confused, so lost... that i might just go to the beer shop up the street and call the woman who runs the place 'wife'. actually, she's pretty hot. you can keep your kelly latte.

[2nd Reef]

That's one Kelly Latte with two shots of adrenalin and a switch of feet.