<p>Zero for me. I make a delicious cup of coffee at home. And so cheap. I would imagine it could get expensive if you bought 2 cups of coffee per day at Starbucks. I don’t know how much they charge, but $3 is probably a good guess. That would be $1,560 per year just on coffee. I’m frugal.</p>
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<p>My mom, who is in her 80’s, drinks about 12 cups a day, but she buys the cheapest coffee she can find. She doesn’t care what it tastes like. She’s just addicted to the caffeine.</p>
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<p>You actually build up a tolerance to caffeine. My mom can drink 12 cups, plus several energy shots or drinks, and still complains of being tired all the time.</p>
<p>“My mom, who is in her 80’s, drinks about 12 cups a day, but she buys the cheapest coffee she can find. She doesn’t care what it tastes like. She’s just addicted to the caffeine.”</p>
<p>And even if I did I don’t think I’d be buying it from those kinds of destination coffee shops. 3-5 dollars for a cup of coffee seems like quite a lot.</p>
<p>The whole month of December i go once a day and have a latte and a cranberry bliss bar. It’s my little holiday tradition. Otherwise I rarely go.</p>
<p>Never. I’m a tea drinker.
If I want to stay awake for 24 hours, I’ll drink a cup of coffee<br>
–but I make it at home. If I drink coffee 2 or 3 days in a row, I’m freaking out, chest pain, anxiety, etc. The world seems to run on caffeine, but for me, it’s a bad drug.
I do love the smell of coffee, but if I drink it, it needs about 1/2 a cup of flavored creamer.</p>
<p>That’s funny, sewhappy, I’m similar with Starbucks. I go almost daily from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. After that, I’m not really interested in going there. It must be their special red holiday cups…they really get me in a festive holiday mood;).</p>
<p>Our community which is newer and relatively middle to upper income young families has one ind coffee shop and a Starbucks right across the street. Equal locations, parking etc. Starbucks outsells the other place probably 90 to 10. And many bring their young kids who are getting ingrained into Starbucks like the used to be at McD’s.</p>
<p>Agree barrons – I see lots of kids at Starbucks drinking those high calorie sugary concoctions – or I did in California, anyway. I’m not seeing as many kids at the Starbucks here in MN. One of my daughters is pretty hooked on those frapuccinnos. There is no Starbucks near her college, and I have to say, I think that is probably a good thing. There are places to get coffee drinks around, but none has the same appeal to her as Starbucks.</p>
<p>My visits are seasonal–once a week or two during the winter, 2-3 times a week during late spring-early fall. I’m a big iced coffee and iced passionfruit tea lemonade drinker, so I hate carrying them around in the winter. My BF and I like to walk there together as a little easy ‘date’</p>
<p>I don’t like the taste of Dunkin Donuts or Caribou coffee…something about Starbucks!</p>
<p>Coureur–SB near you charges 3-5 bucks for a cup of coffee? I know the silly drinks can run that much, but i haven’t heard coffee itself runs so high near us. (not a fan in any case, but still would be surprised to see it that high).</p>
<p>Understand that you’re not buying the coffee. </p>
<p>You are participating in the Starbucks Experience, defined by CEO Howard Schultz in Onward as “personal connection - an affordable necessity. We are all hungry for community…” described as the variety of customer types inside the store. </p>
<p>Staff is trained to interact with legendary customer service, so much so that Schultz took down tall espresso machines, realizing that that blocked the essential sight-lines between customers and baristas. </p>
<p>He broke the mold by giving part-time employees access to excellent healthcare benefits, after working 4 months at the level of 25+ hours per week. As well, baristas can and do become shareholders. They can apply for help on some college course costs (books, for example) that have no direct application to their work. So, people actually like to work there. It’s a decent employer.</p>
<p>Schultz sought to become the “Third Place” for customers, defined this way: home is your First place for feeling comfortable and connecting with people. Work comes Second. Starbucks strives to become peoples’ Third Place.</p>
<p>Of course the coffee tastes good, but people go inside the shops for the feelings. </p>
<p>The drive-through windows were a risky choice for Schultz. He wasn’t sure he could communicate that Starbucks Experience without the sit-down cafe. When someone simply hands out poured coffee to a person, without seeing its preparation, might they just drive away unimpacted? So he ramped up staff training on through-the-window connecting with customers. If your barista “shmoozes” and banters for 5 minutes with you while you sit in your car, that distracts you as a customer from minding that your drink takes 3-5 minutes to prepare start-to-finish from when you utter your order. It’s all part of the business model.</p>
<p>I try to only drink coffee once or twice a month. If I do I prefer Coffee Bean. Their dark chocolate latte is divine. Our campus is highly caffeinated though, on campus there’s a full starbucks, two Coffee Beans and a Peets. Across the street, there’s two Starbucks, a Coffee Bean and a Seattle’s Best.</p>
<p>I do have friends who go to Starbucks daily.</p>
<p>The holiday season kills me. Starbucks Caramel Brûlée Latte’s are my absolute downfall. I get about 2-3 a week. The rest of the year I might go once a week. DH has a Keurig for his office to keep down on buying coffee out in the morning. He always sets up a 1/2 pot coffee ready to brew for me when I wake up. How’s that for service? :)</p>
<p>Here are examples of why I like to go to coffee shops instead of brewing at home:</p>
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<li><p>I love a place called Thinking Cup. Serves Stumptown Coffee, which is one of the best artisan brands. They even have “siphons”, which are little brewers on the bar in which they carefully make individual cups. They care about the product. The owners program the playlist from their phones and it’s a cool mix of EDM and other stuff, not the recycled classics you usually hear. The employees sit in the cafe when they’re not working. I’ve met a bunch. One has a very good band that’s just about to release their first record. (I’ve heard a few tracks on his phone.)</p></li>
<li><p>I meet people like Kaylee or Cooper, college grads working in another artisan place - serves George Howell coffee - as they get ready to go to grad school. One was homeschooled and graduated a year early. Another is from the west coast and followed his girlfriend east. A 3rd kid grew up a few miles from where my kid now lives in CA and came here for a change of scene. He graduates next year.</p></li>
<li><p>I meet people who are making a different course through life. Mostly at Peet’s. Turns out that Jason was also born on a US AFB. These guys are not kids. One is a brewer and is in a hard core band that sounds like Black Flag - which was funny because he’d never heard Black Flag. </p></li>
<li><p>And if you go to a Starbucks in Brighton, you meet mostly college aged kids and an oddity: really good ice skaters. One barista just won the US pairs title (with his partner, duh). Want to see a bunch of really fit people (most with back problems)? That’s the Starbucks.</p></li>
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<p>Occasionally I get something from Starbucks when we are traveling, especially turnpike rest stops. My D likes their coffee cakes/pastries so sometimes when we are traveling she gets breakfast. She also goes with friends after school a few times a month, she likes the chai tea lattes. I don’t go much because I am too cheap. (I don’t have a Keurig for the same reason).</p>
<p>Lergmom it does sound like you enjoy your experience and chatting with the employees. I use the self-checkout lanes at stores whenever possible because I don’t want to chat with employees!</p>
<p>My store shares a wall with Starbucks. We are working on the pass-through. </p>
<p>I consider Starbucks my conference room, since my store is so tight for space my office is called the bunny hutch. I am there once a day for coffee. Maybe once more for lunch a few times a week. Then a meeting or two with vendors. A quiet place to get some technical work done. And then maybe a late afternoon tea or snack. A spot to pick up a gift if I am out of time … </p>
<p>I’d be considered a heavy user even if I only have coffee 3x a week.</p>
<p>There is a WaWa (gas station/convenience store) on the way home from my church. They have any size hot drink for a buck, so I stop in for a 24 oz hot chocolate a couple of times a week on the way home from a meeting.</p>