As a child, Fridays had a special status. Friday was “donut day.” My dad would wake me and my brothers up extra early so we could go to Winchell’s. I can still taste the Cinnamon Crunch donut and still smell my dad’s black coffee. I can feel the warmth of the splash of black coffee on the Winchell’s napkin that my dad assured me was the best way to get sticky donut goodness off my fingers. I remember famed UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden sitting in a booth next to us on many occasions and my dad saying, “Hi Coach.”
Eventually, Winchell’s gave way to Starbucks. The same shopping plaza and a very similar experience. Better coffee.
Fast forward, 30 years, and Starbucks continues to be a part of the weekly cadence of my family’s life. I have my own two children now and they consider the occasional Starbucks to be something between a right and a privilege.
Our occasional trips to Starbucks don’t have the same iconic status as the “Donut Day” of my childhood. It’s more a matter of convenience than it is a matter of connection. Sometimes we’ll go in and sit for a few minutes, but truthfully, Starbucks isn’t very comfortable these days.
I don’t care about Starbucks enough to pay close attention to their business strategies. But, like many, I’ve noticed a few things– less seating, less comfortable seating, a reputation for yucky bathrooms, questionable music. It feels like Starbucks gave up on the idea of being a place for human connection. The convenience of mobile ordering has undoubtedly facilated that as well. Since my relationship with Starbucks is purely transactional, I don’t grieve the Starbucks of “Donut Day.” But I note that, aside from the product, Starbucks offers little/ no value to me or my family. It’s not the stuff of tradition, of deeply embedded sense memories. We’re not going to run into Coach Wooden.
I thought about all this as my daughter and I sat in one of our local Starbucks this morning. This is her first summer working rather than going to a summer camp. She’s also learning to drive. So she drove us there and we had a few minutes to sit before we resumed our journey to her summer camp job. As we typically do, we ordered via the app, walked in, had zero interaction with the staff, and picked up our beverages. It was only when I looked at the “good morning” scrawled on both of our cups that the the full brunt of the Starbucks effect hit me. How hollow those few words rang. We sat on the few uncomfortable chairs awaiting us, used the one seemingly clean restroom, and eventually left. I’m sure the staff is lovely. Our beverages were the same as always. But the few words written our cups really drove home the absurdity of it all. After years of business strategy that seems to care little about human connection, what is a meaningless scribble on my cup actually meant to accomplish other than to make me even more aware of how little human connection went into my morning cup of coffee?
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