It's an encouraging reflection of how well things are going in Missoula these days that little else is causing as much teeth-gnashing among the local intelligentsia than the impending opening of a downtown Starbucks coffee shop.
Oh, the horror!
What is Starbuck's great offense? There are several.
Ubiquity is one. Familiarity indeed breeds contempt. With some 6,000 shops in 30 countries, Starbucks has become one of the most familiar brands on the planet. This annoys those people who believe bigger is never better.
Competitiveness is another of its cardinal sins. Starbucks knows how to sell coffee and presents formidable competition to others in the coffee-selling business. This makes it natural for other coffee sellers to see Starbucks as a business threat, but it doesn't entirely explain why so many others see this as a problem. The only way Starbucks can out-compete other vendors is if people prefer Starbucks to the alternatives. Anti-Starbucks fervor is proof that many people believe you should shop where they want you to shop, not where you'd prefer to. These are the same people who think working-class folks shouldn't save money by shopping at discount stores or large grocery chain stores.
Starbucks is profitable. That will always get you in trouble in some circles.
Starbucks also suffers from the same failing assigned to other major corporations - it hasn't solved world problems, such as Third World poverty. Starbucks hasn't turned poor coffee farmers into wealthy coffee farmers - as if anyone else has, would or could.
However, the only way to revile Starbucks is to ignore its humble beginnings as a small coffee-roasting shop, opened in 1971 adjacent to a farmer's market in Seattle, a company that grew and prospered because it had a good idea and executed it brilliantly. Starbucks launched a veritable coffee Renaissance, elevating the cup o' Joe to something much grander.
Those small independent coffee shops and kiosks all over town that Starbucks now threatens? They owe their existence to Starbucks. It was Starbucks that got people to plunk down $2 for a cup of coffee and be glad about it. It the process it launched an entire industry - made up, by the way, largely of little, independently owned espresso shops that took a whole lot of business away from the cafes and restaurants that once did a brisk business with 25-cent cups of drip coffee.
Today there are thousands and thousands of young people earning money in coffee-making jobs - some with Starbucks, most elsewhere. These are jobs that didn't exist before Starbucks introduced Americans to the term “barista.” These aren't high-paying jobs, but they're plentiful with flexible hours, and they help pay rent or tuition. Pre-Starbucks, making coffee was something a waitress or bus boy did in between their many other chores.
Actually, it may not be possible to hate Starbucks without also opposing free enterprise, entrepreneurialism and capitalism in general. It's a shining example of all three.
Now a confession: Some of us haven't darkened a Starbucks' door for years. There's no shortage of good coffee to be had in these parts, and most of it is a good deal more conveniently obtained than by traveling to the nearest Starbucks. The opening of its downtown shop won't change that by much. We don't much fear for the survival of our favorite coffee vendors - they're not about to roll over and play dead. They'll compete, some of them fiercely, and most of them will find a way to succeed.
Among them may be one that competes with such innovation and creativity that it becomes, well, the next Starbucks. If so, that will be a good thing.
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