“
Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.
”
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Sarah Vowell
“
In the world of Big Macks Starbucks coffee and oversized SUVS it was business as usual snort and go
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Saira Viola (Crack Apple And Pop!)
“
Baz has stopped glaring at Penelope and started glaring at me. “What on earth are you drinking, Snow?”
“A Unicorn Frappuccino.”
He frowns. “Why’s it called that—does it taste like lavender?”
“It tastes like strawberry Dip Dab,” I say.
Penny’s grimacing at Baz. “For heaven’s snakes, Basil, I can’t believe you know what unicorns taste like.”
“Shut up, Bunce, it was sustainably farmed.”
“Unicorns can talk!”
“They’re only capable of small talk; it’s not like eating a dolphin.”
Baz takes my Frappuccino and sucks down a huge gulp. “Disgusting.” He hands it back to me. “Not like a unicorn at all.
”
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Rainbow Rowell (Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2))
“
I drink coffee sometimes, but Starbucks’ coffee tastes like burnt ass,” I say.
“Actually, it tastes nothing like burnt ass, Anna.”
“And how would you know what burnt ass tastes like?”
He laughs. “That’s for me to know…and you to find out.”
I’m not sure I want to find out, but whatever.
”
”
Fanny Merkin (Fifty Shames of Earl Grey)
“
I like to go to Starbucks and watch the intellectuals. I observe them and their intellectualness. They in turn observe me drinking coffee and being a creeper.
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Ryan Lilly (Write like no one is reading)
“
For more than three decades, coffee has captured my imagination because it is a beverage about individuals as well as community. A Rwandan farmer. Eighty roast masters at six Starbucks plants on two continents. Thousands of baristas in 54 countries. Like a symphony, coffee's power rests in the hands of a few individuals who orchestrate its appeal. So much can go wrong during the journey from soil to cup that when everything goes right, it is nothing short of brilliant! After all, coffee doesn't lie. It can't. Every sip is proof of the artistry -- technical as well as human -- that went into its creation.
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Howard Schultz (Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul)
“
Detective Virgil and Barlow [bomb-technician] arranged to meet at the Starbucks. Virgil got a grande hot chocolate, no-fat milk, no foam, no whipped cream, and Barlow got a venti latte with an extra shot. As they took a corner table, Virgil said, “Remind me not to stand next to you if you’re handling a bomb. That much caffeine, you gotta be shakin’ like a hundred-dollar belly dancer.”
“At least I’m not drinking like a little girl,” Barlow said.
”
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John Sandford (Shock Wave (Virgil Flowers, #5))
“
Madison: I got you a Starbucks coffee. It's better than the crap I make. We can heat it up in the microwave.
Kimm: Don't drink coffee.
Madison: Really? I can't live without it.
Kimm: Water in the morning, juice in the afternoon, herbal tea at night.
Madison: Any alcohol in there somewhere?
Kimm: Alcohol slows me down. So do tobacco and sugar. I've found that a healthy body creates a healthy mind.
Madison: Wish I could be that disciplined. It's not easy.
Kimm: Nothing worth having is easy.
”
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Jackie Collins (Lethal Seduction (Madison Castelli #1))
“
Never underestimate the power of an unsolicited candy bar or Starbucks drink.
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Gerry Brooks (Go See the Principal: True Tales from the School Trenches)
“
I hated that the Metro was carpeted, and that it was so far underground—you felt like a mole by the time you got down the escalator—and I hated that you had to swipe your card to get in and out of the station. I hated that you couldn’t eat or drink on the train, and I especially hated that everyone obeyed the rule, like they were afraid they’d be arrested for sipping a cup of Starbucks on their morning commute.
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Jennifer Close (The Hopefuls)
“
They’ve always made a bigger deal about the side effects of drinking pregnant in America than they have in France. But then, the Americans make a bigger deal of everything. It’s a bad sign, this trial. It shows very poor taste. It shows that French people are eager to place the blame elsewhere for their own choices. Between that and the arrival of Starbucks, you’ll see.
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Courtney Maum (I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You)
“
Let’s get a drink,” Circe suggested, pointing to the Starbucks. “Look, there’s a picture of a goddess on all their stuff. Maybe they’re pro-goddess.” “They’re probably just using us to sell their overpriced products,” Medea said. But since there was little else, they both bought coffees.
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Carey Ravenstar Robin (Naked in the Garden of the Serpent)
“
Where else but a coffee-house could you pay a couple dollars for a drink, then fritter away four hours splayed across a couch, reading a book?
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Taylor Clark (Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture)
“
To the one with her head out the window, drinking the rain.
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George Starbuck (Bone Thoughts.)
“
One cup contains Starbucks coffee, and one holds diarrhea. But which is which? Drink it, and the one that doesn’t make you vomit is the diarrhea.
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Jarod Kintz (I love Blue Ribbon Coffee)
“
The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories. Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey caffé mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle’s Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bitter-sweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top. No wonder it costs so much.
”
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Sarah Vowell (The Partly Cloudy Patriot)
“
Starbucks itself is a product of diverse global cultures: “Starbuck’s customers, whether in Zurich or Beirut, are drinking an American version of an Italian evolution of a beverage invented by Arabs brewed from a bean discovered by Africans.”71
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Patricia J. Campbell (An Introduction to Global Studies)
“
Let’s think about the fake sense of urgency that pervades the left-liberal humanitarian discourse on violence: in it, abstraction and graphic (pseudo)concreteness coexist in the staging of the scene of violence-against women, blacks, the homeless, gays . . . “A woman is rpaed every six seconds in this country” and “In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, ten children will die of hunger” are just two examples. Underlying all this is a hypocritical sentiment of moral outrage. Just this kind of pseudo-urgency was exploited by Starbucks a couple of years ago when, at store entrances, posters greeting costumers pointed out that a portion of the chain’s profits went into health-care for the children of Guatemala, the source of their coffee, the inference being that with every cup you drink, you save a child’s life.
There is a fundamental anti-theoretical edge to these urgent injunctions. There is no time to reflect: we have to act now. Through this fake sense of urgency, the post-industrial rich, living in their secluded virtual world, not only do not deny or ignore the harsh reality outside the area-they actively refer to it all the time. As Bill Gates recently put it: “What do the computers matter when millions are still unnecessarily dying of dysentery?”
Against this fake urgency, we might want to place Marx’s wonderful letter to Engels of 1870, when, for a brief moment, it seemed that a European revolution was again at the gates. Marx’s letter conveys his sheer panic: can’t the revolution wait for a couple of years? He hasn’t yet finished his ‘Capital’.
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Slavoj Žižek (Violence: Six Sideways Reflections)
“
Says here there's a reward," Mr. Hooks said.
Tallie blinked, then remembered Keith had added that tidbit for incentive. She opened her purse and scrutinized the contents of her slim wallet--twelve dollars and a book of stamps. She handed over the ten and the stamps, then tossed in a free drink coupon from Starbucks. "Thanks." Then she turned and fled.
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Stephanie Bond (Whole Lotta Trouble)
“
at Dunkin’ Donuts, how did we move our anchor to Starbucks? This is where it gets really interesting. When Howard Shultz created Starbucks, he was as intuitive a businessman as Salvador Assael. He worked diligently to separate Starbucks from other coffee shops, not through price but through ambience. Accordingly, he designed Starbucks from the very beginning to feel like a continental coffeehouse. The early shops were fragrant with the smell of roasted beans (and better-quality roasted beans than those at Dunkin’ Donuts). They sold fancy French coffee presses. The showcases presented alluring snacks—almond croissants, biscotti, raspberry custard pastries, and others. Whereas Dunkin’ Donuts had small, medium, and large coffees, Starbucks offered Short, Tall, Grande, and Venti, as well as drinks with high-pedigree names like Caffè Americano, Caffè Misto, Macchiato, and Frappuccino. Starbucks did everything in its power, in other words, to make the experience feel different—so different that we would not use the prices at Dunkin’ Donuts as an anchor, but instead would be open to the new anchor that Starbucks was preparing for us. And that, to a great extent, is how Starbucks succeeded. GEORGE, DRAZEN, AND I were so excited with the experiments on coherent arbitrariness that we decided to push the idea one step farther. This time, we had a different twist to explore. Do you remember the famous episode in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the one in which Tom turned the whitewashing of Aunt Polly’s fence into an exercise in manipulating his friends? As I’m sure you recall, Tom applied the paint with gusto, pretending to enjoy the job. “Do you call this work?” Tom told his friends. “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” Armed with this new “information,” his friends discovered the joys of whitewashing a fence. Before long, Tom’s friends were not only paying him for the privilege, but deriving real pleasure from the task—a win-win outcome if there ever was one. From our perspective, Tom transformed a negative experience to a positive one—he transformed a situation in which compensation was required to one in which people (Tom’s friends) would pay to get in on the fun. Could we do the same? We
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Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
If I had three lives, I’d marry you in two.
And the other? That life over there
at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing — a memoir,
maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably,
a small apartment with a view of the river,
and books — lots of books and time to read.
Friends to laugh with; a man sometimes,
for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like
when it’s alive. I’m thinner in that life, vegan,
practice yoga. I go to art films, farmers markets,
drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry.
I vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt
weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat
and aftershave more than I do him. I walk the beach
at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks
water makes in sand. And I wonder sometimes
if I’ll ever find you.
”
”
Sarah Russell
“
Musk burst in carrying a sink and laughing. It was one of those visual puns that amuses him. “Let that sink in!” he exclaimed. “Let’s party on!” Agrawal and Segal smiled. Musk seemed amazed as he wandered around Twitter’s headquarters, which was in a ten-story Art Deco former merchandise mart built in 1937. It had been renovated in a tech-hip style with coffee bars, yoga studio, fitness room, and game arcades. The cavernous ninth-floor café, with a patio overlooking San Francisco’s City Hall, served free meals ranging from artisanal hamburgers to vegan salads. The signs on the restrooms said, “Gender diversity is welcome here,” and as Musk poked through cabinets filled with stashes of Twitter-branded merchandise, he found T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Stay woke,” which he waved around as an example of the mindset that he believed had infected the company. In the second-floor conference facilities, which Musk commandeered as his base camp, there were long wooden tables filled with earthy snacks and five types of water, including bottles from Norway and cans of Liquid Death. “I drink tap water,” Musk said when offered one. It was an ominous opening scene. One could smell a culture clash brewing, as if a hardscrabble cowboy had walked into a Starbucks.
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Walter Isaacson (Elon Musk)
“
Then I descend a flight of stairs and step outside into an already-muggy August morning. Not until I’m at the corner do I realize I left my travel mug on the kitchen counter. I decide to treat myself to an iced latte instead of going back to the apartment. These days, I spend as little time there as possible. Because numbers never lie. And two plus one equals … too many. I pull open the heavy glass door to Starbucks, noticing it’s packed. Not surprising: Seventy-eight percent of American adults drink coffee every day, with slightly more women than men consuming it regularly. And New York is the fourth-most coffee-crazed city in the country. I
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Greer Hendricks (You Are Not Alone)
“
Just as I was about to reach the junction where I cross to catch the bus, I stopped dead, my eye drawn to a sly movement, a measured dash of brownish red. I breathed in, the morning air cold in my lungs. Under the orange glow of a streetlight, a fox was drinking a cup of coffee. He wasn’t holding it in his paws—as has been clearly established, I’m not insane—but, rather, had dipped his head to the ground and was lapping from a Starbucks cup. The fox sensed me watching, looked up and stared assertively into my eyes. “What of it?” he seemed to be saying. “A morning cup of coffee, big deal!” He went back to his beverage. Perhaps he’d had a particularly late night out by the bins, was finding it hard to get going on this cold, dark morning. I laughed out loud and walked on.
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Gail Honeyman (Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine)
“
After all, no big business idea makes sense at first. I mean, just imagine proposing the following ideas to a group of sceptical investors: ‘What people want is a really cool vacuum cleaner.’ (Dyson) ‘. . . and the best part of all this is that people will write the entire thing for free!’ (Wikipedia) ‘. . . and so I confidently predict that the great enduring fashion of the next century will be a coarse, uncomfortable fabric which fades unpleasantly and which takes ages to dry. To date, it has been largely popular with indigent labourers.’ (Jeans) ‘. . . and people will be forced to choose between three or four items.’ (McDonald’s) ‘And, best of all, the drink has a taste which consumers say they hate.’ (Red Bull) ‘. . . and just watch as perfectly sane people pay $5 for a drink they can make at home for a few pence.’ (Starbucks)*
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Rory Sutherland (Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life)
“
But come on—tell me the proposal story, anyway.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really. Just keep in mind that I’m a guy, which means I’m genetically predisposed to think that whatever mushy romantic tale you’re about to tell me is highly cheesy.”
Rylann laughed. “I’ll keep it simple, then.” She rested her drink on the table. “Well, you already heard how Kyle picked me up at the courthouse after my trial. He said he wanted to surprise me with a vacation because I’d been working so hard, but that we needed to drive to Champaign first to meet with his former mentor, the head of the U of I Department of Computer Sciences, to discuss some project Kyle was working on for a client.” She held up a sparkly hand, nearly blinding Cade and probably half of the other Starbucks patrons. “In hindsight, yes, that sounds a little fishy, but what do I know about all this network security stuff? He had his laptop out, there was some talk about malicious payloads and Trojan horse attacks—it all sounded legitimate enough at the time.”
“Remind me, while I’m acting U.S. attorney, not to assign you to any cybercrime cases.”
“Anyhow. . . we get to Champaign, which as it so happens, is where Kyle and I first met ten years ago. And the limo turns onto the street where I used to live while in law school, and Kyle asks the driver to pull over because he wants to see the place for old time’s sake. So we get out of the limo, and he’s making this big speech about the night we met and how he walked me home on the very sidewalk we were standing on—I’ll fast-forward here in light of your aversion to the mushy stuff—and I’m laughing to myself because, well, we’re standing on the wrong side of the street. So naturally, I point that out, and he tells me that nope, I’m wrong, because he remembers everything about that night, so to prove my point I walk across the street to show him and”—she paused here— “and I see a jewelry box, sitting on the sidewalk, in the exact spot where we had our first kiss. Then I turn around and see Kyle down on one knee.”
She waved her hand, her eyes a little misty. “So there you go. The whole mushy, cheesy tale. Gag away.”
Cade picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “That was actually pretty smooth.”
Rylann grinned. “I know. Former cyber-menace to society or not, that man is a keeper
”
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Julie James (Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4))
“
Starbucks has odd drink sizes. I say man’s hands were meant to be cupped, so pour the hot coffee right in. But obviously I’ll need help pouring and stirring in cream and sugar, as my hands will be full.
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Jarod Kintz (This Book Title is Invisible)
“
Audra said, “The whole Starbucks experience has just been ruined for me since they started listing the calories next to all the drinks.
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Katherine Heiny (Standard Deviation)
“
But Tokyo offers cat cafes, a commercial solution to the problem of wanting to commune with cats but being unwilling or unable to have one at home.
Iris's favorite cat cafe is Nekorobi, in the Ikebukuro neighborhood. When I first heard about cat cafes, I imagined something like Starbucks with a cat on your lap. Wrong. Nekorobi is what you'd get if you asked a cat-obsessed kid to draw a floorplan of her dream apartment: a bathroom, a drink vending machine(free with admission), a snack table, video games, and about ten cats and their attendant toys, scratching posts, beds, and climbing structures. Oh, and the furniture is in the beanbag chic style.
Considering all the attention they get, the cats were amazingly friendly, and I'd never seen such a variety of cat breeds up close. (Nor have I ever spent more than ten seconds thinking about cat breeds.) My favorite was a light gray cat with soft fur, which curled up and slept near me while I sat on a beanbag and read a book. Iris made the rounds, drinking a bottomless cup of the vitamin-fortified soda C.C. Lemon and making sure to give equal time to each cat, including the flat-faced feline that looked like it had beaned with a skillet in old-timey cartoon fashion.
”
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Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo)
“
According to MacKenzie, it has a French chef, a Starbucks, riding stables, a spa, a helicopter landing pad, and a plaza of designer boutiques so kids can shop during lunch and after school hours. And get this! She said her school has ATM machines in every hall, right next to drinking fountains that dispense seven different fruit-flavored waters. But
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Rachel Renée Russell (Tales from a Not-So-Perfect Pet Sitter (Dork Diaries #10))
“
He has never joined the coffee-drinking masses at his neighborhood Starbucks, who assemble daily in order to ignore each other completely—humans of every age and description deafened by headphones, staring dumbly at their glowing screens. Each morning Darren studies them as he waits in line for his double espresso. Then he orders his coffee, sweetens generously, and leaves. The
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Jennifer Haigh (Heat and Light)
“
They were sitting outside the big Starbucks that anchored the western end of Pioneer Square. Lisa was drinking iced tea sweetened with half a dozen packets of sugar, Bria a flat white, Pete sprawled under the table with a dish of water. All around, people sat at café tables in the late afternoon sunlight, perched on broad steps that dropped to the well where a gout of water pulsed and plashed. Smart little yellow trams ran along one side of the square, which was bordered by office buildings and the plate-glass windows of high-end shops. A sliver of Earth jammed into this alien world, where a dozen or more Elder Cultures had lived and died out or ascended to some unfathomable stage of consciousness, leaving behind ruins and artefacts, scraps of technology, algorithms and eidolons. A perfectly ordinary scene…
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Paul McAuley (Into Everywhere (Jackaroo, #2))
“
Subway restaurants agreed to remove the “yoga mat chemical” from their bread following a petition I started.1 Kraft decided to remove artificial food dyes from their kids’ mac and cheese products after I stormed their headquarters with over 200,000 petitions.2 Chick-fil-A’s chicken went antibiotic free following my meetings with them urging them to do so.3 Anheuser-Busch and Miller-Coors both agreed to publish their ingredients for the first time in history following another of my petitions.4 I was finishing up my first book, exposing the chemicals in our food, and it was slated to be out in a few short months. I had just published an investigation into Starbucks’ famous Pumpkin Spice Latte,5 calling them out for their use of “class IV” caramel coloring (a chemical linked to cancer).6 This piece went viral, with millions of views and shares (which ultimately led to Starbucks dropping this coloring from their drinks).
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Vani Hari (Feeding You Lies: How to Unravel the Food Industry's Playbook and Reclaim Your Health)
“
Giving preachers advice on how to prepare sermons is a little like telling them what "their drink" should be at Starbucks.
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Mark Dever (Preach: Theology Meets Practice: Theology Meets Practice)
“
If you think a competitor sucks, say so. When you do that, you’ll find that others who agree with you will rally to your side. Being the anti-______ is a great way to differentiate yourself and attract followers. For example, Dunkin’ Donuts positioned itself as the anti-Starbucks. Its ads once mocked Starbucks for using “Fritalian” terms instead of small, medium, and large. Another Dunkin’ campaign was centered on a taste test in which it beat Starbucks. There was even a site called DunkinBeatStarbucks.com where visitors could send e-cards with statements like “Friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks.
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Jason Fried (ReWork)
“
We do not know that drinking more caffeine puts women at higher risk for miscarriage. We only know that women who ingest more caffeine are more likely to miscarry. It might be the caffeine, or it might be the aggravation caused by their local Starbucks’ barista.
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Vinayak K. Prasad (Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives)
“
Starbucks is intensely personal. Aside from brushing their teeth, what else do so many people do habitually every day? They drink coffee. Same time. Same store. Same beverage. There's a special relationship millions have developed with our brand, our people, our stores, and our coffee. Preserving that relationship is an honorable but enormous responsibility.
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Howard Schultz (Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul)
“
What kind of experience do you want to deliver to your customers? Starbucks wanted to bring the Italian coffee-drinking ritual to customers in the USA and around the world. How do you want to stand out by offering a better experience to your customers? What’s the experience they want to have in every interaction with your brand? Can you craft an experience around how your customers want to feel? Do they want to be delighted, nurtured, listened to, pampered, or something else? How are you going to get them there? How does your customer experience differentiate you from your competitors? Instagram’s simplicity and the fact that social sharing was built into the user interface offered users a different level of engagement with the app than that provided by other photo-sharing apps. How does experiencing your brand, from the first point of contact to the last, make your customers feel? How could you make that experience something that your customers can’t wait to share? Dollar Shave Club customers feel savvy and they want to share the discovery of the secret with their friends.
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Bernadette Jiwa (The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys to a Great Brand Story and Why Your Business Needs One)
“
Thanks for going in with me,” I told her.
“No problem, there is too much testosterone in the car without you. I’m outnumbered. Besides, coffee sounds perfect,” Nessa, said as she got in line for our drinks.
-Cora and Nessa at Starbucks
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Andrea Heltsley (Dissolve (Dissolve, #1))
“
Stop by Starbucks,” Day said without looking up from his cell phone messages. “You drink way too much coffee, Day. I mean all day every—” “And you fuck too much. I mean all day every day.” Day cut God off. “Do I tell you to stop? No. Instead I feed your addiction. Can’t you provide me the same courtesy?” God
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A.E. Via (Nothing Special)
“
Yes, we all want world peace. But some of us also want to drink Starbucks every day without the guilt of reading a million articles about how if we just saved that money, it would become half a million dollars by the time we’re 65. Sometimes you just want what you want. And sometimes what you want is a latte. You
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Sara Kravitz (Just Tell Me What I Want: How to Find Your Purpose When You Have No Idea What It Is)
“
She overslept, was rude to her barista at Starbucks, and had an inexplicable craving for Baskin Robbins. She moped. She pouted. And even though she’d hexed a man to fawn over her, repeatedly going, “Hey, you look familiar, can I buy you a drink?” with no recollection of the ten previous times he’d done it, she found no pleasure in the hijinks. She was in a funk. It bothered her.
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Daniel Younger (The Wrath of Con)
“
We purchase an average of 1,440 McDonald’s burgers, 5,695 Starbucks drinks, and $84,000 worth of items on Amazon every sixty seconds.
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Greg Nettle (Small Matters: How Churches and Parents Can Raise Up World-Changing Children (Exponential Series))
“
People around the world drink more coffee than any other drink besides water: four hundred billion cups a year.
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Leonard Sweet (The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion)
“
Drinking tea is like kissing your dog. It’s warm and wet, sure, but where’s the kick? If I need to, I’ll just pick up another Venti at the Starbucks and use the bathroom there.
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William Lashner (The Barkeep)
“
In Seattle, Washington, in 1971, Howard Schultz, the owner of a local coffee roasting and distribution company, noted the increasing affluence of the American public and their desire to receive gracious treatment in their daily activities. Schultz recognized that there was a market for small businesses featuring top quality coffee and an opportunity to relax in an attractive environment. To take advantage of these emerging Minitrends, Mr. Schultz initiated the very successful Starbucks chain which offers top quality coffee drinks in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere Starbucks has a long record of appreciating Minitrends, but failed to recognize the trend that more economically-stressed customers were beginning to opt for similar, lower-cost drinks offered by fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s. While still popular, in summer 2008, the Starbucks company announced the termination of 1,000 employees, and in November 2008, the company reported a 98 percent decline in profit for the third quarter of the year. To be more economically competitive, Starbucks has recently introduced a line of instant coffee.
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John H. Vanston (Minitrends: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends: Between Megatrends & Microtrends Lie MINITRENDS, Emerging Business Opportunities in the New Economy)
“
FLETCHER: The truth is I don’t think people understand what it is I did at Shaffer. I wasn’t there to conduct. Any idiot can move his hands and keep people in tempo. No, it’s about pushing people beyond what’s expected of them. And I believe that is a necessity. Because without it you’re depriving the world of its next Armstrong. Its next Parker. Why did Charlie Parker become Charlie Parker, Andrew?
ANDREW: Because Jo Jones threw a cymbal at him.
FLETCHER: Exactly. Young kid, pretty good on the sax, goes up to play his solo in a cutting session, fucks up -- and Jones comes this close to slicing his head off for it. He’s laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night. But the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And practices and practices. With one goal in mind: that he never ever be laughed off-stage again. A year later he goes back to the Reno, and he plays the best motherfucking solo the world had ever heard. Now imagine if Jones had just patted young Charlie on the head and said “Good job.” Charlie would’ve said to himself, “Well, shit, I did do a good job,” and that’d be that. No Bird. Tragedy, right? Except that’s just what people today want. The Shaffer Conservatories of the world, they want sugar. You don’t even say “cutting session” anymore, do you? No, you say “jam session”. What the fuck kind of word is that? Jam session? It’s a cutting session, Andrew, this isn’t fucking Smucker’s. It’s about weeding out the best from the worst so that the worst become better than the best. I mean look around you. $25 drinks, mood lighting, a little shrimp cocktail to go with your Coltrane. And people wonder why jazz is dying. Take it from me, and every Starbucks jazz album only proves my point. There are no two words more harmful in the entire English language than “good job”.
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Damien Chazelle
“
So when I was in college, I used to work at Starbucks, right? And when I’d get a rude customer, I’d make their drink extra good. Like, I’d use cold-pressed coffee in their Frappuccino instead of the coffee concentrate, that kind of thing? And I wouldn’t tell them what I did so they could never re-create it. That way for the rest of their life their drink would never be as good again and they’d always be chasing that one time and they’d never enjoy it the way they did that day.
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Abby Jimenez (Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2))
“
She pushed the notion out of her mind - that was silly. You couldn’t have sex with a Starbucks drink...or could you? No...you couldn’t.
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Evelyn Cloves (Seduced by the Pumpkin Spice Latte)
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The difference between these two alternatives couldn’t be starker. At Starbucks, the drink sizes are Italian words, not English ones. The array of coffee concoctions that one can choose from takes up multiple boards above the barista’s preparation station. There is, by contrast, no “barista” at Dunkin’ Donuts. Until recently, there weren’t an awful lot of choices at Dunkin’, either. Small, medium, or large. Cream, sugar, or both. (James usually goes with a medium coffee with sugar. It is practical and costs about two bucks. It gets the job done efficiently.) You’re unlikely to walk out of Starbucks with a two-dollar cup of coffee. But that’s not what the Bleus are looking for. Starbucks offers a kaleidoscope of options, many of them daringly offbeat, and the company’s ethos clearly aligns with the priorities of fluid people—even if it occasionally stumbles, as with its #RaceTogether campaign, which was intended to foster conversations about race among its customers, but which drew a harsh and speedy backlash from across the political spectrum. But that hasn’t stopped the Bleus from frequenting the chain. Indeed, the fluid’s love of nuance, the less traditional, and the pursuit of individual fulfillment is on full display at Starbucks (or any of the other cutting-edge coffee shops in the Bleus’ neighborhood, which are full of people expressing their individuality with lots of tattoos and piercings).
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Marc Hetherington (Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide)
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For someone who, like James Redd, prefers the simplicity and straightforwardness of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, a trip to Starbucks is like a journey into another dimension. In much the same way, one-size-fits-all coffee does not cut it for the Bleus. Phoebe’s favorite order is the “grande two-pump skinny vanilla latte.” Finn almost always gets a “grande skim latte with mocha and peppermint, 4.5 pumps, nonfat, no water, no foam, with extra hot chai.” Although people with fluid worldviews talk about these drinks among their friends fully believing that everyone knows what they mean, the Redds would probably need a translator to learn that Phoebe has ordered a large skim-milk latte with a half shot of sugar-free vanilla syrup, while Finn has asked for a medium nonfat latte with four and a half pumps of chai syrup, no water added, the foam taken off the top, and the cup filled with extra-hot steamed milk.
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Marc Hetherington (Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide)
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Starbucks’ drink menu reads a lot like an Egyptian medicine book; all that’s missing is the cat hair and penis water.
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Matt Siegel (The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat)
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But there’s also another kind of herding, one that we call self-herding. This happens when we believe something is good (or bad) on the basis of our own previous behavior. Essentially, once we become the first person in line at the restaurant, we begin to line up behind ourself in subsequent experiences. Does that make sense? Let me explain. Recall your first introduction to Starbucks, perhaps several years ago. (I assume that nearly everyone has had this experience, since Starbucks sits on every corner in America.) You are sleepy and in desperate need of a liquid energy boost as you embark on an errand one afternoon. You glance through the windows at Starbucks and walk in. The prices of the coffee are a shock—you’ve been blissfully drinking the brew at Dunkin’ Donuts for years. But since you have walked in and are now curious about what coffee at this price might taste like, you surprise yourself: you buy a small coffee, enjoy its taste and its effect on you, and walk out. The following week you walk by Starbucks again. Should you go in? The ideal decision-making process should take into account the quality of the coffee (Starbucks versus Dunkin’ Donuts); the prices at the two places; and, of course, the cost (or value) of walking a few more blocks to get to Dunkin’ Donuts. This is a complex computation—so instead, you resort to the simple approach: “I went to Starbucks before, and I enjoyed myself and the coffee, so this must be a good decision for me.” So you walk in and get another small cup of coffee.
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Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
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Keeping her mind off the basement as well, she wondered exactly when coffee had gone walkabout in France. When she’d first been here, drinking coffee hadn’t been a pedestrian activity. One either sat to do it, in cafés or restaurants, or stood, at bars or on railway platforms, and drank from sturdy vessels, china or glass, themselves made in France. Had Starbucks brought the takeaway cup? she wondered. She doubted it. They hadn’t really had the time. More likely McDonald’s.
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William Gibson (Zero History (Blue Ant, #3))
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In this cocoon of fortune our perspectives flattened. All of our problems existed in one dimension. Minor vexation and true hardship were one and the same. Small annoyances—an unanswered text, a sold-out SoulCycle class, a crippling hangover—rendered us inert. A Starbucks drink made incorrectly was a personal attack.
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John Glynn (Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer)
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All right. I’ll do it. Tonight while he’s sleeping. If he wakes up, I’ll kill him.” He was so matter-of-fact, as though Malek were simply an obstacle that had to be removed. “Just tell me where his room is and—”
“Malek isn’t like most masters. He’s different.”
“He’s human. How different can he—”
“He doesn’t age,” she said. “He was born over a hundred summers ago, but you saw him at the party—he hardly looks older than you or I.” Nalia shrugged at the question in Raif’s eyes. “I have no idea how this is possible. His whole life is one big secret; I know more about the baristas at the Starbucks on Sunset than I do about Malek.”
Raif furrowed his brow. “I have no idea what you just said.”
I’ve become far too human.
“Starbucks is this place where humans get coffee.” Raif cocked his head to the side. “Which,” she continued, “is this drink that makes you . . . happy? It gives you energy and—oh, never mind.
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Heather Demetrios (Exquisite Captive (Dark Caravan Cycle, #1))
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If a Starbucks drink could be a church, it would be LifeChurch.TV
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Sam Anderson (Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis)
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In understanding how their customers wanted to feel, Starbucks took a product that Americans were used to paying fifty cents for (or drinking for almost free at home or at work) and were able to charge three or four dollars per cup. Starbucks customers are willing to pay more for their coffee because they sense greater value with each cup.
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Donald Miller (Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen)
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We would even make the point one step further: a great product without marketing can’t hold a candle to a good one with great marketing. Does Starbucks really have the best coffee? Is Red Bull really the best energy drink? Is Apple really the best at innovation? Now think about the brands you know and love. Food, leisure, automotive, sports, business technology, whatever. Are they amazing products that you admire and use? How did you learn about them? What drew you to them? Build a great product and share your vision of what it can be with the world. Then use marketing to create a connection between your customer (and audiences) and your organization so that people can find, interact with, and buy your amazing product.
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Jill Soley (Beyond Product: How Exceptional Founders Embrace Marketing to Create and Capture Value for their Business)
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If you went to Starbucks every workday, how long would it take before you had to have the same drink for a second time? The correct answer is 334 years - as Starbucks provides 87,000 different drink combinations
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Janne Korhonen (Sales Fundamentals for Technical Specialists)
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Chromakopia green uh like Pickle Rick chromakopia I've got a cold, I'm pretty sick. Mocha starbuck coffee hot brown drink..."
"Coffee coffee coffee.. I need to drink my coffee.
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Jeff Kinney
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a typical girl drinks Starbucks everyday.
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Jake Turner (Minecraft In Real Life: An Unofficial Minecraft Adventure (Stevi and Henry's Adventures Book 1))