You know how sometimes when you go to “the source”, food and drink tastes better? You know, like going to a farm and getting fresh cut vegetables? Or to a micro-brewery? Or to Evian, France? Well, I wondered if the same might be true for Starbucks locations in Seattle? It’s 6AM, nothing else is open, so I wandered into a Starbucks, ordered a Pike’s Market Roast (saving room for cream) and I wanted a toasted bagel, and the woman behind the counter said they only had “#$)(*#$” (unintelligible), which she went on to explain where “cheese and garlic.” I asked if the that was two things or one? She said they were combined, so I ordered one with a light schmear, and went to wash my hands while waiting for my order. I asked where the washroom was, and the clerk pointed, and told me the secret code to get in the door. (Spoiler, it was 22334).
Apparently they hand the code out willy-nilly, because much like my home town Starbucks, there was a homeless guy bathing in the sink.
Exiting, I watched them prepare my bagel, I doctored up my coffee, and read the napkin – “Real Food, Simply Delicious,” it said, and went on to explain that Starbucks has removed the artificial trans-fats, artificial flavors, artificial dyes, and high-fructose corn syrup from their food. “Now your food not only tastes better, it is better,” they went on to say.
I pondered this while I watched the counter person take my frozen bagel from a bag of six, toast it, and slip it into a bag with a mini-plastic tub of Kraft Philly Cream Cheese.
Must have been some other “real food” the napkin was talking about.
And no, Starbuck’s Coffee doesn’t taste any better just because I was in Seattle. I am not sure why any coffee place can’t figure out the easiest key to great coffee? A clean machine.
Hundreds of miles from home, drinking bad coffee, and wondering why I am not at home drinking home town roast Cardinal Coffee!
