Delocator, Shmelocator

So I tried the Starbucks Delocator that everyone is talking about (except of course one organization that got sat on by Starbucks.)

So, yah, it's great everyone is googlebombing the site so it's the top hit for Starbucks Delocator.

But have you tried USING the Starbucks Delocator? I found the initial results to be somewhat depressing.

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8 Responses to Delocator, Shmelocator

  1. Very interesting. Somehow, I’ve got to keep this in mind for better time to enter some coffee spots into the database. (It says that there are “0” in my zipcode, but there’s several around here.)

    But how to decide which to put in? Is this merely an anti-Starbucks site? So would The Bad Ass Coffee Company go in there, then? In the final analysis, it’s another corporate biggie which just happens to have a cool name.

    There’s a place near here called Beans and Brews. It seems to be pretty local, but there are quite a few stores here. Should they go in the database?

    Or should it just be limited to the single location businesses?

    It really annoys me to go from city to city to city in the United States and see Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys ‘R’ Us, McDonald’s, Walmart, Starbucks…all of those giant companies…they’re EVERYWHERE! No matter what city I go to, it looks like the same smeggin’ city I just came from! Aesthetically, it sucks…I might just as well have stayed home!

    But, then again, animosity toward those companies may just be a classic case of hatred of the successful for being successful…attempting to solve the coffee question sheds light upon that. And you just can’t get any more lame than to extol that sort of envy.

    This much, however, is for sure: Starbucks is nearly always on the bottom of my list of choices when I choose to vote with my dollars. In fact, I’ll drive a mile out of my way to get to one of the other places – and then I’ll pay more and leave a tip.

    (The Starbucks brand of ice cream which is sold in grocery stores, however, is right at the top and a few clouds higher, though!)

  2. rachel says:

    I used it to add my favorite coffee spot and it seemed to work fine. Interface was simple and info requested was basic.
    There were not many places listed yet, that should change.

  3. Brian says:

    Maybe you should move to Chicago — zip 60640 does just fine. And we’re having one of our 20 days of nice weather right now!

  4. fiat lux says:

    Disclaimer: I work part-time as a barista as Starbucks.

    Why all the anger against Starbucks? Seriously. They treat their employees far, far better than the average retail employer. If you work just 20 hours a week, you get the full range of company benefits — including a good health insurance policy, stock options, 401K, domestic partner benefits, and a host of others. Compare that to Wal-Mart or even just the average retail employer and you’d know just how rare that is.

    I’m not going to disagree that the “mall-ization” of America is an issue. It is. But there are some ‘good’ corporations out there, and Starbucks is one of them.

  5. I too am torn by Starbuck’s. I try to invest in companies that invest in their employees (e.g. Costco, Starbuck, Regal Hair Salons) and to frequent them as I can.

    But I am also a small business owner (network, software and database consulting, specializing in Open Source solutions. LAMP r00lz!, umm sorry about that) who tries to give a leg up to my fellow San Diegans. I haven’t resolved it other than I’m going to encourage as diverse an ecosystem as possible.

    On a completely different topic, I just added a bunch of shops local to me (92120), but in doing this I noticed something cool about Google. When you search on a name that resolves to a coffee shop, Google automatically checks to see if there’s Wifi! (google lestat’s San Diego). Yet another factoid pointing to the future global dominance of Google (LAMP r00… um sorry again )

  6. Paul says:

    Surely the businesses that are popular thrive and those that aren’t go out of business? I understand the concept that the smaller-companies cannot always compete against the big-boys, but provided the big company acts within the laws of business (and its ethics) where is the issue?

    This delocator thing has some eloquently put claims about the effect on local culture, as if somehow nationally identifiable companies aren’t worthy of cultural status. I guess the icon of the usa that is Coca-cola isn’t culturally good enough? Or Levis jeans? No of course not… Yet these companies don’t provide something different each time, they earn a profit by providing customers with what they desire time after time (I think they call it consistency). If culture is the mood of the people then multinationals are as big a cultural symbol of modern living as anything around, surely?

    Then we could take the ‘they don’t pay as much for coffee beans etc’ tact. But then do you honestly believe that Joe Bloggs and his local coffee shop would pass up the opportunity to pay less for their coffee beans? Sure they should have standards in place to ensure that these places operate with legal frameworks for purchasing and there, of course, needs to be forms of monopoly law to prevent one becoming so large they harm the marketplace, but is there any reason to believe that little companies act more honourably than larger ones, or is just that the effect of misconduct by the large companies is so much larger? After all is it the fault of Starbucks that masses of people choose their store over the local coffee shop, or is it the fault of the people who frequent them?

    It seems the age old say “you pays your money you makes your choice” is worthy, so visit the site if you would like to be anti-starbucks, but first question whether you are doing it for a rational reason or just because you blindly dislike multi-nationals because ‘they’re big and big equals bad’

  7. Michael says:

    Fiat – I like Starbucks bagged coffee, especially the Anniversary and Xmas blends. I don’t like the prices of the in-store coffee, and I’m afraid I really loath the twee names they give the drinks.

    And, more generally, the sheer prevelance of the darned things is part of the homogenization of everywhere.

    But I like the fact that they have happy workers.

  8. fiat lux says:

    re prices: It’s the reverse Wal-Mart effect. No, some of the drinks are not exactly cheap. Neither is paying workers a fair wage & giving them lots of benefits. If Starbucks charged less for drinks, one of the things that would go on the chopping block is cost of labor, since it is the biggest single piece of the cost in each cup. So, you can have low prices and low wages, or higher prices and higher wages.

    re names: yeah, some of them are pretty lame. Not much I can do about that though.

    re beans: I prefer single-origin coffees, especially the South American ones, but the Anniversary blend is nice.

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