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Don't laugh at me, but what is ...?

Started by Frickman, February 08, 2006, 10:00:33 PM

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Frickman

Don't laugh at me everyone, but maybe I spend too much time in the woods. What is a "Starbucks"? I read about this thing in the newspaper, usually on the editorial page where some opiner compares it to something they're writing about. I just want to know so I'm not "out of the loop."
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

Paul_H

The only Starbuck I have heard of is the chain of Coffee houses.
Science isn't meant to be trusted it's to be tested

brdmkr

Starbucks is a ritzy coffee company.  To be honest, I like their coffee, but I don't like the 'trendy' marketing.  They are a huge company with coffee houses all over the world.  Their coffee is a good bit more expensive than most.  Is it worth the price?  Don't know.  Hope this helps.

Lucas 618  Mahindra 4110, FEL and pallet forks, some cant hooks, and a dose of want-to

JimBuis

Starbucks:  American gourmet coffee shop that started out small and is now a worldwide phenomenon.  They don't really have much to sell.  If you don't care much for coffee, they sell hot chocolate.  Other than that, they don't really sell anything else except maybe donuts or orange juice.  Nonetheless, somebody likes their coffee as they are selling a lot of it and at premium prices.  It is a VERY popular place here in Tokyo I can guarantee you that.
Jim Buis                             Peterson 10" WPF swingmill

Frickman

That's probably what they're talking about, thanks guys. The only "coffee houses" that I'm familiar with are the mom and pop coffee shops in town. I don't drink coffee, and never did, so that must be how it slipped past me. Living in the country and rarely going to the big city probably doesn't help either.

If their product isn't the greatest, and is "premium priced", how do they stay in business? Is it the marketing? The only coffee marketing I've seen Folgers and Maxwell House.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

J_T

Jim Holloway

Bill

Frickman ( a little yarn mixed with a little info )

I don't quite understand it. The Starbucks outfit is pretty popular this part of the state. People have a hankerin for high dollar coffee with strangers away from home.

I tried one once some years back to see what the fuss was. I walked in and looked up to see  "menus" of coffee(s) on all the walls. Figuring I'd try to bluff my way thru this I strolled up to the counter and asked for a regular - heavy on the milk and light on the sugar. You'd have thunk I was speaking greek. The poor person trying to serve me ( I can't even remember whether they were male or female as the mind blocks out painful experiences ) asked me to be more specific - did I want expresso , latte, %&^T(*, - I had no idea what they were asking ! I repeated my request - however now there were people behind me and the patrons already served were starting to take note of the hold up at the counter. Young ladies giggling and dapper men frowning. What to do ? The world was closing in .

I had a panic attack - "just give me some black coffee - anything". Wouldn't you know it cost two days lunch money for that experience. The people inside just shrugged as I limped away. The moral of the story is that Starbucks serves high end coffee in "coffee boutiques" for people that truly want the ultimate coffee experience. Kinda like buying sparkling water instead of drinking what comes from the tap - different strokes for different folks .

I hear they make alot of money so they must reach someone and maybe some like it once and awhile for a "treat".

Epilogue - that was the one and only trip I ever made to Starbucks - not my cup of tea.

J_T

Hey Bill you don't want to try Moon Bean's either then  :o :D
Jim Holloway

etat

Oh for the days when you could go to Lil Abners truck stop and get you some ham and eggs or steak and eggs and spend a whole TEN CENTS on a cup of coffee and sit there and drink coffee near about all night if you wanted to and refills were FREE.    ::)


I've never had Starbucks or what was that other place, Moon Beans? but I bet they couldn't hold a candle to that coffee at that truckstop that was made  in them big ole Bunn coffee pots.  Heck, if you got to keeping the wattresses tooo busy refilling yer cup they'd just bring a whole fresh pot and leave at your table so you could refill your own. 

Of course, we always did keep the wattress happy by leaving em a nice tip when we'd 'finally' get ready to leave.  I've sat there many a night after everything else closed up (specifically the bars back in the day which was a loooooooong time ago) until daylight.    :)
Old Age and Treachery will outperform Youth and Inexperence. The thing is, getting older is starting to be painful.

ScottAR

Never been to a starbucks as I don't drink coffee but maybe once a winter...
The next town has a "Joe Mugg" coffee thingy. Never been there either...

The Comedian Lewis Black claims to have found the end of the universe in Texas...  He was walking down a street in Houston I think and he found a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks...   ::) :D :D
Scott
"There is much that I need to do, even more that I want to do, and even less that I can do."
[Magicman]

asy

Here's their website

they're a franchise, high priced, too many varieties to be sane, coffee place.

Must admit to never having been into one. (and yes, they are here too).

They do stock Tazo Tea, which is THE BEST herbal tea you will ever taste, I love their Orange one.

It's VERY hard to get here :( near to impossible, last time I went looking I came up blank :(

asy :D
Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.
There cannot be a crisis next week. ~My schedule is already full..

iain


asy

hehe, yeah, I found that just before, have already got an answer from the vendor about how much postage is for 5 boxes to the land of Oz...

Just about to buy them...

Then I'll be a HAPPY GIRL!

asy :D
Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.
There cannot be a crisis next week. ~My schedule is already full..

Weekend_Sawyer


If you ever wached the Fraser TV show. His brother Niles would walk into their favorite Coffee shop and order a "Half Caf, half no caf, late, with whip and verry little nutmeg.  If you ever saw that then you would know what it was like inside a starbucks.

I must admit their regular coffee is pretty good, but I feel like slapping people around when I walk in there ;)

Jon
Imagine, Me a Tree Farmer.
Jon, Appalachian American Wannabe.

ARKANSAWYER


  It's a Yuppie thing.  You make strong coffee and add all kinds of stuff with code words so you can stand to drink a $3.00 cup of joe.   Makes them feel special and in the loop.   Drank one cup one time and have had better in the mess hall.   I would bet real men do not spend much time in there and for the price of 2 cups I can make 30 pots in deer camp.
  But it is a good lession in marketing.  It is hard to sell bug infested half rotten moldy pine boards.  But, buckshot demin pine boards sell twice the price of plain pine.  Keep your truck clean, mill in good shape and the place neat around the saw shed and people will like you better.  Get a catchy name and pretty business cards and folks will keep them longer.  Selling lumber to cheap is worst then selling it too high.  But most of all make them feel like you did them a favor by selling them some wood.   They are special.  These are things to learn from a coffee house that sells a cup of joe to people with flair and not much else.
ARKANSAWYER

TexasTimbers

Frickman,

We live in a rural area and we don't go into the BIG big city (Dallas) very often. By city folk standards we are country. But I just read your post out loud to my wife and she said in that sweet voice of hers ... "Ohhhhhhh I want to move out into the country like that...."  :D I said "honey we already live in the country."
I guess the country is always more country on the other side of the pasture.
You have a life that city folks who are trapped in their ratrace-routines will only ever dream of. So do we thank the Lord.  8) God bless a man who doesn't even know what "a starbucks" is.   ;)
The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

asy

Quote from: kevjay on February 09, 2006, 09:31:43 AM
I guess the country is always more country on the other side of the pasture.

that sounds a lot like the comment that: "Old is always 15 years older than I am"...

asy :D
Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.
There cannot be a crisis next week. ~My schedule is already full..

woodbeard

Hmm... so if us liberals don't like Starbucks, and y'all conservatives don't either, who the heck is buying all these 3 dollar cups of coffee? Maybe this country is more moderate than we think.  :D

In my world there only two Starbucks- Richard Hatch, and Katee Sackhoff, who, respectively, played/play the character of that name on the original and the new "Battlestar Galactica" TV series.  ;D

thecfarm

People love bing ripped off.They love paying more for something because it's an outrageous price,so they think it has to be something special or it has to be worth it because of the price.Just like Arkansawyer said, selling lumber too cheap or anything, is worst than selling it too high.The public will think there is something a matter with your product.Location is also very imporant.People hate going out of their way for anything.Than everyone wonders why walmart does so well.One stop shopping.We have a small greenhouse buisness and we know how this works,We are 2 miles off from a state highway and some people hate to come to us.We did a Farmer's Market last year.We ran out of string beans,had 35 lbs,and we told quite a few people where we was located,15 minutes away and they thought that was too far to go,but they HAD to have some. You lose.It's too bad that some people are too busy to enjoy life.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Onthesauk

Let's not get too self righteous about how tough we are living way back in the woods.  We're all sitting here at our computers, communicating in seconds, with folks all over the world.
John Deere 3038E
Sukuki LT-F500

Don't attribute irritating behavior to malevolence when mere stupidity will suffice as an explanation.

TexasTimbers

Quote from: Onthesauk on February 09, 2006, 11:31:34 AM
....communicating in seconds, with folks all over the world.
.
It's still nearly unbelieveable to me, that we can do this. And man anytime you need an answer you can almost always find it. Thanks, Al Gore :D
The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

Weekend_Sawyer



Yea but we are not drinkin a half caf, half decaf, late with wip and just a little nutmeg...

... are we...

Jon
Imagine, Me a Tree Farmer.
Jon, Appalachian American Wannabe.

SwampDonkey

We have Tim Hortans coffee houses all over the place now. In Carleton and Victoria Counties there never was a one until they started construction of the new 4 lane. There are people that will go 10 miles (or more) from home to eat breakfast every day and to go to a Tim's. I know this because the ditches are full of Tim Hortan's coffee cups, I live on a dead end road and the nearest Tim's is 12 miles from here.  When my folks had their home built there must have been an assigned coffee carrier to supply the crew, there was a mountain of coffee cups all over the yard that had to be cleaned up. The building contractor said that was the worst summer he had. I speculated that there was too much runnin for coffee and not enough attention to work. He was trying to do 5 jobs and too many places to run to supervise. ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Buzz-sawyer

Hey Frick
To answer your question,"Starbucks is a ............what?"

I am not too sure, but I think it is one of them there, halfaway houses, for city folk who can find thier wayto where they are suppossed to be......I know because Kirk Allen owns them, as best I can tell.......he never passes one up one the way somewhere.....and always re invests in it while there ;) :)
    HEAR THAT BLADE SING!

Ironwood

Frickman,

If you envision the EXACT OPPOSITE of "PEACHINS" in Dunbar for your coffee then you have it. Fancy Smancy ( I own them just like KIRK, I keep reinvesting).

  For those who don't know PEACHINS you can get a 23 cent cheese burger and a 55 cent fry, and I think the drinks were 50 cent. CHEAPER than CHEAP.

            Reid
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

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