Restaurant chains aim their sights on Starbucks' customers

Restaurant chains aim their sights on Starbucks' customers

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday June 7, 2006


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Three large restaurant chains have aimed their sights on Starbucks' customers, according to a story set for Thursday's New York Times.

"Three big restaurant chains are revving up efforts to take on Starbucks, which has struck it rich by serving expensive coffee to people looking for a little bit of daily luxury," writes Julie Bosman.

"But the chains -- Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's and Burger King -- are not going after the Starbucks coffee snob; they're going after the average Joe," the article continues.

"Call it class war in a coffee cup," Bosman writes.

Excerpts from the article:

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Burger King customers buying the new BK Joe coffee "don't want it to be complicated, like a chai half-decaf whatever," said Denny Marie Post, the senior vice president and "chief concept officer" for Burger King, a unit of Texas Pacific. (BK Joe comes in both regular and Turbo-Strength.) "Our customer doesn't have that kind of money, frankly, and doesn't have that kind of profile. They just want it to be straightforward. This is not frou-frou coffee."

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The chains have been playing up their un-Starbucks features -- like fast service, easy-to-pronounce sizes, and, that all-American mainstay, the drive-through. Then there is the price: an average 12-ounce cup of McDonald's Premium Roast coffee is 99 cents, well under Starbucks' standard price for drip coffee and a far cry from some of its drinks that can cost upward of $4.

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NOW That is desperation ... NO self-respecting Starbucks' customer is going to McDonald's, or Burger King, or Dunken Donuts ... LOL!! ...

I don't mind paying a premium for a good cup of coffee, but their coffees are bitter and cheap tasting.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...................

and for the same reasons...

I completely agree...

It takes a triple shot to even taste like there's any real coffee in there.

I hope you don't say DD's. It's lightly coffee-flavored water, and doesn't deserve to be called "coffee."

Imagine that! People like different things!

Even Einstein Bros has better coffee than that nasty bile they serve at Starbucks (although they flavor most of their coffees which purists would scoff at).

I remember the first time I tried Starbucks coffee. I was actually looking forward to having a quality coffee on every street corner. Now I'm just glad they paved the way for other chains and specialty coffee shops. Where there's a Starbucks, there's probably a good cup of coffee around the corner from it.


Dunkin' Donuts? Please.

:eyes:

Personally, I think Starbucks is far superior to any swill in any coffee shop near me. I like darker roasts, and Starbucks always offers that option. They also brew their coffee stronger so it stands up to the sugar and cream (though I drink it black), unlike DD's, who basically serve you a cup of melted coffee ice cream should you foolishly ask for it "regular." -- eighteen spoons of sugar and half a cup of cream.

As for really good coffee...my fave is Mocha Joes in Brattleboro, VT. If they'd only open half an hour earlier so I could stop on my way to the slopes in the winter!

n/t

pungent odors of roasting meat carcasses.

I, for one, have my doubts.

"Burger King customers buying the new BK Joe coffee "don't want it to be complicated, like a chai half-decaf whatever,"

So here's a clue for you fucking morans...walk up to the counter at Starbucks and say "MEDIUM BLACK COFFEE, PLEASE." You'll get a medium black coffee. If you want to get daring, you can ask for a dark-roast. Ooooooohhhhh. Soooo Complicated. And guess what? Starbucks coffee costs the same as Dunkin "Carlyle Group" Donuts coffee, too -- no, it does not cost $4 a cup.

How did people grow to be so stupid?

Not that many people know this but Starbucks, being corporate owned, does a lot of market research before opening a new store. They base their decision on the demographics of a community; it's income level, age of population, "quality of life" issues, future, etc, etc. That's why you'll often see six DD's in a town that doesn't have a single Starbucks.

I know that doesn't say a damned thing about how you like their coffee, I'm just saying. If Starbucks is building a new outlet, that's a town to buy into.

joints and nothing more. and, if I were a bk customer, would be annoyed at the insult of being too stupid to order at starbucks.

the beans, imo...

I am a fan of the corporation, as far as corporations go...

I also hate the tall-grande bullshit. small medium large please, and that's how I order there - they get over it.

I love the drive thru 24hr Starbucks- those rock when I want a soy chai latte at 3am. :-)

I hate what they can do to small business owners- having been one and held my own serving coffee a block away from two Starbucks- the simple answer we found- serve really fucking good coffee, and know your customers by name. Not everyone can survive, but at least Starbucks serves organic, fair trade coffee, and takes care of their employees better than most corps.

fuck BK McD and DD - i'd be pissed at being called stupid too (if I was their customer, which I am not, but I am their demographic, they missed the mark with me)

That's heaven!

I don't see how patronizing the huge corporation Starbucks is more "self-respecting" than patronizing the huge corporations Burger King and McDonald's. They are all factory outlets, with Starbucks being a lot more expensive.

If I was going to spend too much on a cup of coffee, I would do it at a locally-owned place, not Starbucks.

And to the marketers - I do like a decent cup of coffee, so I make it myself, and I occasionally have a fast food burger. That doesn't make me a moron who can't pronounce "cappuccino". Ugh. I hate when marketers talk about human beings in terms of dumb stereotypical demographics like that. No wonder Burger King's sales have been slumping for years. They keep repackaging and repackaging the marketing concept while the quality has gone to hell and the restaurants have gotten filthy. :puke:

take it from a coffee snob who roasts his own beans

Three big chains:

one that serves two basic things--coffee and donuts
and two that serve a full menu of sandwiches, salads, desserts, all sorts of drinks, and coffee

are going after a company that sells:

eight different varieties of coffee prepared in hundreds of different ways

by selling

one kind of coffee prepared one way.

I've heard of some damn fool marketing efforts before, but this is fucking ridiculous. "We're not going after Starbucks coffee snobs but regular joes." Who were, by and large, not going to Starbucks in the first place.

But oh wait. I forgot. If you go to Burger King for coffee, you get it in a BK Joe cup that has a little paragraph about how the contents are simple and unpretentious just like you are. Until now I never heard of a marketing campaign that revolved around calling the customer a dumbass.

If you go to McDonalds, you get a cup of coffee that's most famous for its ability to cause third-degree burns.

I don't know what Dunkin Donuts can use as their pitch...oh, I got it: "Millions of Cops Can't Be Wrong." Why don't donut shops have reserved spaces for police cars?

Oh, and Starbucks is starting to get into drive-thrus. There's a Starbucks with a drive-thru in Fayetteville and it can't be the only one in the chain.

They want to engage in class warfare in a coffee cup? Starbucks has already won.