Starbucks in the news recently for anti-union stance, and more recently than that for demanding that customers buy something if they want to sit. Then most recently a statement that this new requirement has been announced for US Starbucks premises and will not affect the UK. Which is comforting.
Not everyone likes Starbucks coffee but we’re fine with it - you do know you’re awake for the day. Complaints about £5 for a cup of coffee but prices have risen everywhere, including for ground coffee (or grounded as some of the Cypriot stores in the South were pleased to call it) at the grocery store. And actually a basic filter coffee at a UK Starbucks is half that - £2.55 to be precise. The £5 charges are for the fancy sugar fixes pretending to be honest coffee.
But fond memories of the London Starbucks on Queensway. For several years when we stayed at the Baron Hotel round the corner we referred to its cave like basement as our office, and while we did dutifully buy a filter coffee we also stayed longer than the price of same could reasonably have entitled us to, though not if it reached the point where there were no seats available for new arrivals. The staff were a pretty tolerant lot with regard to clientele. Apart from the likes of us there were people clearly filling in the time between hotel checkout and train time. And quite a lot of people who were misfits of one kind or another. Reading the newspapers, talking to themselves, making minor adjustments to dress or repacking the bags in which their lives resided. And eating, almost always food acquired in less expensive places - marked down sandwiches from Tesco or even slices of toast (from a hostel breakfast?) Usually, though not quite always, they acknowledged the obligation to buy a cup of coffee or tea as table rent. And the young baristas seemed to regard them as part of the less fortunate who should be tolerated and even welcomed.
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