I think presenting evidence might be difficult without actually doing taste tests, Kurt. All I can say is that repeated assaults on my tastebuds in cafes in Frankfurt and a couple of airports in Germany (and Zurich too, which probably isn't fair but there you go) have convinced me to stay well close to Starbucks when in Deutschland (there's one with a nice view of the cathedral in Koln, and one on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin where I can watch people and pretend to be a character in Emil and the Detectives).

TonTon wrote:

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Spoken as a true drinker of wet sugar.

The essential coke/pepsi-ness is as clear in the diet versions as in the icky sugary ones, to anyone with a modicum of taste.

Very true. Pepsi is grim. Coke is quite nice.

I'm still waiting for Coke to bring out their Citrus Zest coke in full sugar version, because it would actually be very nice if it weren't for the vile taste of artificial sweetener.

Kurt, my view was Frankfurt-biased for obvious reasons. I'd agree with you that there are more possibilities in Munich, Hamburg or Berlin, though that is true for just about anything of value.

And Gramsci, should you be going back to FFM anytime soon, you can try Kaffee Wacker (the one in Nordend has a nice garden in the back) or the Metropol, both of which know what they are doing.

Why would you ever drink coffee in Koln when you could be drinking a glass of Fruh?

Although, generally, I've found German coffee to be ropey but tolerable, and even the stuff in Tchibo is better than Starbucks.

What Wyatt was saying on the other page about the watery stewed nastiness of North American coffee is absolutely right. Outside of the UK and the Caribbean, it's the nastiest coffee I've drunk.

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A chain of doughnut shops as a national symbol? Fuck off.

As opposed to what? Britain being known for quaint pubs? France for baguette shops? America for roadside diners?

And SR is right: where other chains draw territory circles on maps and make sure they almost touch, Starbucks overlaps them by a great margin as an economic disincentive for other brands. But it doesn't matter to them if they cannibalize sales, since they're all corporate-owned stores anyway.

And I think Tim Hortons blew it the moment they started doing ads about how much people revered Tim Hortons. Talking about your brand it one thing: talking about how much other people talk about your brand is quite another.

And I say again for the sake of saying it: this thread has proven that there really is no snobbery like coffee snobbery.

"The gap between diet coke and diet pepsi is a lot smaller than the one between coke and pepsi proper."

That is true. I like the fizz and the artificiality. I don't disagree that Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi taste different, but to me, it's not as much of a difference as most people think. I just like both (with a slight preference to Coke). To adamantly insist on only one would be like drinking only one kind of beer.

After years of consuming only the no calorie versions, I can't drink the full sugar versions anymore. It tastes like syrup to me now (but not good maple syrup. Like just the syrup that comes in the plastic bag that they hook up to the machine to serve Coke at a bar).

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More likely, it implies that their strategy of opening a new franchise every two and a half blocks is finally cannibalizing sales.

I don't know about that. They were chock-a-block in a lot of cities five or ten years ago. (Best in Show was made eight years ago.) They only showed a decline in same-store sales for the first time a few months ago.

As you point out, they're all company owned so they don't have to worry about stepping on a franchisee like some other chains. As long as it's working, it's not so absurd for them to be accross the street from one another.

Most businesses expand when they succeed and nobody thinks much of that. But its hard for a Starbucks store to expand in place since it's usually in a fairly small space that wasn't built for a Starbucks (and the bathrooms are always really small). Therefore, the only way to expand is to open another location nearby.

Also, I imagine they think the "experience" would be undermined if they opened a large store the size of a McDonald's (four or five registers, 30 tables, etc). So instead their strategy is to put a small store, or stall, in every available nook and cranny in America.

They've also realy sewn up the "big contract" business, for lack of a better word. Most of the hotels I've been in lately - Hilton, Westin, etc - have Starbucks in the coffee maker in the room and have a small Starbucks in the lobby. Convention centers have Starbucks. Turnpike Service Areas all have Starbucks, it seems (and Sbarros, of course).

Now there's an interesting bit of history there. The people Coca-Cola (they're far larger than Pepsi over here) hired to distribute those syrup bottles or cans are known in Germany as "Cola Millionäre". They usually had good relationships to some higher GIs from the 1950s and became very rich very fast in the 1960s. German football legend Uwe Seeler is one, legendary Munich 1860 president Adalbert Wetzel another.

If I'm not mistaken, Coca Cola is also know for continuing to do business in Nazi Germany long after other American companies thought it might be wise to pull out for a while.

Talking of global brands and the Nazis, has there been a shout for Ikea on this thread yet?

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

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As opposed to what? Britain being known for quaint pubs? France for baguette shops? America for roadside diners?

Well, none of those are chains, or "brands", for a start, and also I think on the whole they're what other people associate with the country rather than what the inhabitants do. Ask a French person what La France means to them, and would hope that liberty, equality and fraternity (for example) would come higher up the list than the baker's.

(Although in reality they're probably better at baking than they are at liberty, equality or fraternity.)

Quaint pubs are pretty high up on my list of what Britain means to me.

Our last extended discussion of Tim Horton's and other "iconic" Canadian brands starts at the bottom of this page .

They closed that one earlier this year, GY. great snap, though.

That was a great thread.

I have to think that some of those are just publicity gimmicks. Like when Ben & Jerry's opened a shop in Moscow about a week after the wall came down.

I've got to say, the Starbucks logo is gorgeous. Great color, composition and central motif.