Starbucks proliferates in Las Vegas with plenty of flavor and enthusiasm; soul not lost in Sin City
Well, it turns out Starbucks has lost its soul and coffee fragrance, and doesn’t know where to find it.
So says an internal memorandum to employees by Chairman Howard Schultz that may have been leaked to the Seattle stringer of The Washington Post. The story turned up on page one of the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday, March 5 as an offshoot of a Seattle Times story the previous Saturday.
Has Starbucks really lost its flavor? Not really, judging by the coffee served in more than two dozen establishments chaotically listed on page 246 of the current Embarq Yellow Pages (To where have you embarked us?) Not really, because you have to wait your turn to place your order at the coffee bar mornings, afternoons and evenings at virtually all of the establishments in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Primm Valley. And that includes the most interesting of Starbucks establishments in Las Vegas—the French street café version under the canopy of the Fremont Street Experience.
Schultz cries all the way to the bank. He’s ready for his w(h)ine and cheese reception. The Big S is now Big Business. From fewer than 1,000 locations, the memo grieves, the company has expanded to about 13,000 stores that no longer smell like coffee due to so-called flavor-locked packaging. The coffee drinking places are crowded with baby boomers, Gen Xers and other Millennials. You can even buy Starbucks coffee and coffee drinks in supermarkets these days.
Those who precede the baby boomers and who grew up in California remember the maximum coffee experience of the 40s and 50s: Manning’s Cafeterias. There were restaurants in California’s three largest cities: home-base San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Just walking inside those restaurants was a memorable taste and olfactory experience. It was steamy inside on a cold day, and the coffee cakes were fresh and delicious. You could buy Manning’s coffee in dark blue one-pound tins that had the company’s name printed in an old-timey typeface. If traveling light, you could buy Manning’s coffee in special paper bags used to receive the coffee ground to your specification.
Seattle years ago unseated San Francisco as the coffee capital of the Pacific Coast. San Francisco long ago was the home of renowned coffee brands such as Hills Bros. (remember the Java-drinking Arab in his yellow nightshirt on the coffee can?), M.J.B. and, of course, Manning’s.
Yup, them were the days…
