For those of you who care, which could be nobody, Country Style is introducing espresso machines. You should care. I’ll tell you why.If I’m in Italy, want espresso and am not able to make it myself for some reason, I have some options:
1. Go to a sit-down pasticceria or any gelateria
2. Go to a café and throw it back at the bar
3. Go to a bar and throw it back at the bar
4. Go to a vending machine (I promise, 80% of the time it’s drinkable)
5. Have a Pocket Coffee – oh Pocket Coffees, I miss you soooooo much.
What do you not see in that list? I’ll give you a hint – our options in Canada outside of a downtown core or non-caker neighborhood:
1. Starbucks
And our options in Canada outside of gasoline alleys, suburbs, and shopping complexes:
1. Dick
Dick has its places, but my coffee cup isn’t one of them. Starbucks is what fucking gets me. Selling insanely over-priced coffee in the equivalent of Holiday Inns, coffee which is at best reasonable and at worst horsepiss, offering no particular benefits but an essential monopoly on espresso, some Fair-Trade products, and a successful brand image. And the people who work there talk to us in the morning when we have sunglasses squished over our faces, a deep green complexion, and one hand held over our stomachs, bracing ourselves to get a latté down there to fuel the Walk of Shame.
All of which is to say, I fucking hate Starbucks. There was a line on the Sopranos once touching on this – I think it was Pauly who called these places the rape of a culture. Comedy? Hyperbole? Sure, but not a lie. Starbucks has successfully branded espresso as a luxury drink in this country, and charges accordingly. But espresso is for the masses, not just for those of us who have the time, money and patience to put up with that shit or who live in a city with real cafés. So the fact that Country Style – the Burger King to Tim Horton’s McDonalds, no less – is going to get it out there thrills me to my toes. I doubt it will hurt Starbuck’s present business much since people are unreasonably addicted to the brand. But I wish to fuck it would. And I sincerely hope it's just the first step leading to a large population of cakers who drink espresso without ever having set foot in one of those dens of thieves.
Now, if only the Fair Trade shit caught on . . .
8 commenti:
Want one.
Right now.
Anybody who doesn't is lying to themselves.
Starbucks is further evidence that the western world will decline not through widespread civil unrest or natural disaster but with the majority of its inhabitants sliding inexorably towards the terminal boredom of getting exactly what they've been told they want. That is, everything the same, everywhere you look.
"It starts with a blessing and ends with a curse/Making life easier by making it worse."
- Why Are We Sleeping? by Soft Machine
Maybe. My neighborhoood, about the poorest and cheapest in the downtown core, has two simply lovely, unique cafés. So I like to think things will be less uniform when real-estate bubbles start blowing for real, and normal people can afford property to do the things they want to with, instead of putting up chains they know will be at least moderately successful.
I hope that's the case. I can't stand the way special places become not-so-special from big business intervention. Here in London, Spitalfields Market used to be a cool little space, but the fact that the area became tres hip a little while back has led to the place being utterly raped. The pseudo-cool city normos have invaded and whacked up property prices, Fresh 'N' Wild or whatever it's called has moved in and y'know, it just ain't the same anymore.
That's gentrification for you. You see it everywhere, but London is a bit of a cautionary tale even in terms of European cities, I think. It can't last - it's the nature of bubbles to break.
Hum espresso....we moved to Montreal just so we could have espresso anywhere, even the smallest bistro.But , on the other hand, without the big italian population ,we would be missing on one of the comforting ways to go thru winter and rain.,Right, Emlyn???
Sleeping with big Italians is not the only way to get through the winter.
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