Starbucks offers first peek at "its not a Starbucks" cafe

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2009527518_starbucks24.html
Shared via AddThis

"The culture is pushing back from the corporate establishment and moving toward more organic, small business."-said customer Scott Christensen, of Puyallup

I apologize now for the use of trendy cliché’s, but really? REALLY? Seriously? How un-small can a company like Starbucks be? In my opinion, Mr. Christensen was unable to recognize a retail concept being test marketed for a potential mega-chain. The article asserts that the 15th Avenue Cafe is a departure from big business as usual for Starbucks, the largest coffee retail chain in the world. The new restaurant has an independent look and feel with its interior comprised of recycled elements, a scaled down beverage offering and a bistro fare. I can't tell if Starbucks just tried too hard on this one or didn't try hard enough. It attempts to leverage street credit (literally) by naming the store after it's geographical location. The name is about innocuous as "Main Street". This is to invoke the perception that it's just a part of the local surroundings.

It's a local stop for local folks, "Inside, an ABC news crew prepared a national broadcast about the new Starbucks store that's so heavily focused on its locale that it shed its corporate name." I don't think that is the real reason Starbucks shed it's corporate name or the fact that they invited the major networks to cover the opening. People who live in Seattle know that they have tried this before. It was previously called "Starbucks Cafe". A little less deceptive I think. This is similar to McDonalds when they opened Chipotle. Everyone knew it was the giant mega corporation hiding its name behind one of its "orphan" brands. Coincidentally, McDonalds now offers McCafe espresso drinks. Starbucks is going head to head with them for the market share. A company that takes on McDonalds can hardly be described as small, no matter how many adaptations it hides behind. At least in that business scenario I'm surprised that people actually still fall for this kind of this mega-corporation-trying-not-to-look-like-a mega-corporation brand positioning.

I’m not surprised that a Seattle based company would cook up something like this. The people in Seattle claim to hate big business. I have never seen so many protests erupt when a major chain tries to grab some real estate in that town. You can’t put up a Wal*Mart with out bulldozing a few dozen people. These are the same people that work for some of the biggest companies in the world (Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Weyerhaeuser, Nintendo, Costco…) but no one is chaining themselves to their front doors. Does this frappacino head really think that if this venture takes off for Starbucks they will endeavor to keep one out of every strip mall across America? You know Starbucks Coffee was once a quirky unknown venture that opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, in 1971. The original store was an “organic” small business. Now they have a corporate headquarters that looks like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and they peddle energy drinks at the local 7-11 (another mom and pop operation gone multinational). Trust me. Starbucks is not downsizing. That’s like saying Amway morphing into Quixtar was an attempt to shrink their business. Quite frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t put a Starbucks inside the Starbucks Café that’s not a Starbucks.

The demise of the Sasquatch

I really believe he is out there. What I find interesting is our never ceasing desire to know that he is out there. Like the dodo bird from the past, we have to club it, kill it and bring it in so we know it’s alive. There is a commercial for a brand of Beef Jerky where the theme of the spot is messing with Bigfoot. This is a perfect analogy of civilized man wanting to not only prove his existence, but to go ahead and impose our will upon him for our amusement. There are whales in the ocean 18 times the size of Bigfoot and we will never see them. Do we need to catch and kill them to know they are there? I see squirrels in a yard and think about why are we terrified of rats and yet cohabitate with squirrels without having to trap them or banish them? What is it about our nature that lets us live along side some species while others we doubt and fear?
I am a firm believer in Bigfoot. I belong to an organization called BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization). Well, I used to belong. Honestly, I only bought a t-shirt from their website to wear on my independant field research. Basically a field researcher is anyone that can walk more than 10 feet, wear a comfortable pair of sneakers and contribute $350 to a hopeless endeavor. I’m not a cynic of the organization I belong to. I just disagree with the administration (much like the rest of this nation). Besides, if I had $350 to blow in the interest of furthering science, I'd spend it on advanced home brewing technologies or a car that runs on sea water.
Where ever Bigfoot is, I am sure that he has no problems believing in us and wants to stay as far away as possible. I shun the concept of an evil terror of a beast tearing apart tents in the wilderness and harassing campers and hikers. He’s probably pooping nervously under a fern somewhere far in the hills of British Columbia. That’s where he is, you know; British Columbia.
No I’m confident Bigfoot will someday choose to walk on down out of the woods. He will probably select one of the worse places to commence his first encounter with western civilization. It will, no doubt, be a Flying J truck stop or an outlet mall. He will probably meander behind a Bass ProShop just after some guy named Doug or Todd will have just bought a camo-colored 12 gauge and 3 boxes of shells. He’ll probably get caught in some embarrassing fashion so beneath his mythic status that he will instantly reduce his standing to that of a bear or rabid hound. Some Alaskan animal control officer will have a snare around his neck after catching him with a half-eaten burrito in a Jack in the Box dumpster. He’ll be on national TV with crumbs in his beard. We will hearken back to the less than anticlimactic capture of Sadaam Hussein in the hole. He’ll crap himself and curl up in a ball in the back of a truck next to stray pit bulls and a dead opossum. Sadly, this is the most probable demise for our mystic beast from the 70’s and 80’s. The beast that lumbered through our nightmares and led countless quasi,self proclaimed anthropologists on epic goose chase expeditions across the Sierra Nevada’s and Cascade ranges. The beast that ate DB Cooper. The gargantuan that battled Steve Austin in the “jump the shark" two-part episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.The indelible prototype to our beloved Chewbacca. It’s sad to picture the almost embarrassed and pathetic look on his face when they shove him in that truck. He’ll grunt and whimper like a darted bear. He’ll lick himself and look disoriented. There will be protests of course. They will be confused about what to do with him. After all the media quiets down, we will go about our lives in a one-less-unknown-menacing-mythical-creature-man-dominated-world. He will be donated to some farm that cares for wounded show pets and Russian circus bears. He’ll be lumped in with the bears even though he probably holds them in the same regard as we hold illegal aliens. He probably thinks they just eat the fish that he won’t eat but even still he doesn’t think they should be allowed to fish in the same river.
I hope I can go see him then. I hope I can get a ticket and travel to Alaska and visit Bigfoot before he passes away in a freak electric fence accident or strange dysentery brought on by canned bear food. I’ll look him in the face and tell him I believed. I believed just enough to leave well enough alone. He’ll growl at me and sit up on his rear haunches like a trained tiger. I’ll throw balled up sandwich bread at him. I'll move down one cage to see a cougar lying in the dirt next to a water dish. No mystery with the cougar. If you run into a cougar in the wild, your supposed to bang a stick against the tree and yell out "NO!".That will let him know who's boss.

Man Found Dead on Seattle Golf Course

SEATTLE TIMES BREAKING NEWS:
A man was found dead on local course from apparent overdose in golf. Investigators say the body was found hunched over the hole on the 17th green apparently retrieving what looked like crumpled paper, sticks and feathers fashioned into a make shift golf ball. The victim was found on the Coyote Creek course at the Willows run golf course in Redmond clutching a score card that recorded over 215 holes played with only one double bogey at the hole where the body was found. Everything before that was scored one below par, a birdie. The identity has not been disclosed, but initial reports indicate a male, 6'2'', dark hair, early forties wearing a Kirkland Brand golf polo shirt and tan trousers. The body was found dehydrated, sun burned and disgruntled over exorbitant food prices at the course concession stand. He apparently forgot about the turkey sandwich and Payday that he packed in his bag from home. Foul play was initially suspected when several of the victim's clubs were found tossed about and embedded in trees and bushes in a close vicinity to the hole on which the body was found. This was ruled out by a grounds keeper that witnessed what can only be described as the "most horrific man tantrum I have ever seen". Friend and relatives stated earlier today, "It's exactly how he would have wanted to go." Others were quoted as asking, " How could this have happened?" and "I can't see how he took a mulligan, went into the water, came out of the water, back into the ravine, and out of the ravine and into the sand and three putted and only got a double bogey?" A funeral has not been scheduled as of this reporting but sources say it will involve the deceased being placed into a golf travel bag lined with 500 thread count sheets and pillows stuffed with 1 week old Norwegian Snow Goose down and buried at sea in one of the ponds on the North Course at Sahalee Country Club.