“Wake up and smell the … !”
Posted by Big John on December 11, 2012
I see that Starbucks have come in for some stick recently for not paying UK taxes, and although they have offered to pay a ‘token amount’( “Too little, too latte”, as one protester’s poster read), they are now losing business to the competition.
I’ve never been a fan of those purveyors of over-priced beverages, where a cup of coffee can cost more that a pint of beer, so I’m pleased to see that some of the ‘great British public’ have decided to get their caffeine fix elsewhere.
Mind you they may get some of their more adventurous customers back if they add a new flavour to their lattes, cappuccinos, macchiatos, mochas and Frappuccinos.
I hate to think of what …
… a ‘Jumbo’ size would cost !
Ginnie said
I have no idea what the deal is with Starbucks and the UK taxes but I can tell you that Starbucks was one company that stuck in there during the worst of this depression we are still in …hiring when others wouldn’t and encouraging other businesses to do the same.
I love a good play on words so the “too little, too latte” struck my funny bone.
SilverTiger said
I often hear this old canard about the inflated price of coffee in the well known coffee chains and conclude that the people who perpetrate it never actually go into them and buy coffee themselves and therefore speak in ignorance. As for the price of beer I cannot say, as I rarely visit pubs and haven’t drunk alcohol for close on a decade. I am not prepared to invent a price for beer in order to make a point.
Tigger and I like to travel. We visit many towns and take refreshment in many cafes and restaurants, so I know what you have to pay for a cup of coffee these days. As it happens, I abandoned Starbucks some time ago, not because of their alleged tax-dodging but because in my view, the quality of their coffee had sunk below that of Costa and Nero and other popular outlets. Our current favourite is Nero, and I can tell you that the price of their coffee is hardly likely to shock anyone who actually bothers to check what it is. Why else do you think their outlets (and those of Costa, Pret and loads of independents) are full all day, often with students (hardly the most affluent members of society) working on their laptops?
The rise of the coffee shop in the last decades of the 20th century was a welcome innovation because it provided an alternative to pubs, where people of all ages could meet and chat for hours on end, without being pressured to pay and leave. The importance of their contribution to the community has still not been adequately recognized in my view.
Big John said
I just knew that I would receive a little rebuke from you on this post, ‘Tiger’
The last time I asked for a small coffee in one of those establishments my old brain was so confused by what I was offered I finished up by ordering an orange juice.
BTW .. Nice to hear that you are ‘on the mend’ at last mate.