Starbucks Away

It appears that the Starbucks between my Lexington apartment and my office will be closing; this will force me, if I want coffee, to go several dozen feet out of my way to get to the other Starbucks between my Lexington apartment and my office. I’m a bit more surprised that the Wallingford Starbucks (1218 N 45th in Seattle) location will be closing; it seemed pretty well attended, and customers could enjoy regular Dave Matthews sightings.

I am neither a strong proponent for nor a critic of Starbucks; the data on whether Starbucks has driven small coffee shops out of business or created a larger market for fancy coffee seems mixed, and my anecdotal experience leans rather heavily towards the latter. I also wish that people would remember, when considering the quality of Starbucks coffee, that outside of a few cities (and really a few places in a few cities), the form “coffee shop coffee” was a remarkably shitty product before the spread of the chain beyond Seattle.