Starbucks in Seattle: Habit or Faux -Pas? Rose Gunson Contributing writer
The Northwest is seen as the epicenter of the gourmet coffee world. Independent coffee shops line its streets, residents discuss robustness and bean origins like the weather, and events such as Northwest Coffee Festival and Coffee Works Seattle have become popular weekend gatherings.
If you happen to take a stroll through Pike Place Market on a Sunday afternoon, you might be bombarded with tourists from all over the world clogging the sidewalks in line to ”experience Seattle’s coffee culture.” They aren’t standing outside one of those independent coffee shops or festivals however, they are pinned to the walkway in front of a Starbucks location, the first one ever created- patiently waiting to order the same beans they could have easily ordered in their hometown the day before…
You can now sip an absolutely identical non-fat iced Grande Vanilla Latte in a strip mall Starbucks on the outskirts of Spokane or Russia as one the one you might order at a ritzy downtown Seattle location.
And it isn’t just Pike Place tourists supporting the corporation in Seattle… there are at least twenty-five Starbucks locations in Seattle proper alone, hundreds in the greater Western Washington area. While Starbucks credits it’s beginning to that same tiny shop in Pike Place and continues to run most of its corporate offices out of the city, its relationship with Seattle has become just a dot on the corporation’s massive international map.
So if they choose to swipe their card at Starbucks regardless, then what defines a Seattlite much more of a coffee connoisseur than the rest of world?
If you ask a real independent bean fan where to visit in the Emerald city, the true heart and soul of the coffee capitol is in the small, local, socially conscious shops. Trabant Coffee and Chai in the University District, Neptune coffee in Greenwood, Muse in Queen Anne and Zoka coffee are all great examples.
Starbucks goes through about 2.3 billion paper cups per year, not very pro-environment for such a green city. The corporation did however, open an eco-friendly café in Capitol Hill in 2009, 15th Ave Coffee and Tea. The location was built to attract Seattlites looking for a more local, natural experience and features recycled furniture such as wooden tables built from an old ship and re-used theatre chairs.
Clearly, Shultz and his squad are trying their best to win hearts in the 206, but it is really worth it to pour another $3.62 into the same pocket that sold our beloved Sonics and has contributed to environmental and local business decay, for a Grande latte you easily order from a local shop around the corner?
Some Seattlites might argue that Starbucks actually is a local coffee shop. After all, it did here and its headquarters provide hundreds of business careers for the local economy. Others consider to be it an evil, money-sucking, basketball-thieving, paper-wasting monster. Both would likely agree on one thing however: local or not, Seattlites need their caffeine.