I planned to respond negatively here to Lee Klein's defense yesterday of Nespresso, the new Lincoln Road joint that doesnt allow take-out coffee. But after running head-on into the Starbucks bureaucracy and hyprocrisy, I am taking a new tack: Starbucks should burn in hell.
The company serves paper cups and is all green, right? Nope. At a recent shareholder meeting, only 11 percent of those who owned stock voted to adopt a recycling plan, according to a story in Daily Finance. The same story says 200 billion drink containers were used last year in the U.S. and more than 130,000 went to landfills. Nobody is recycling anymore.
Try to reach somebody at Starbucks. A manager at one Biscayne Boulevard store this morning told me 95 percent of their coffee is take-out, but declined to speak further or give his name. "Corporate has to talk," he said when I asked how much take-out they serve. "We can be severely penalized." Penalized? For talking? Sounds like Cuba.
So I called another store. "Uh-uh, I have heard people have been fired for speaking to the media," he said. Nice.
Then I called the corporate office in Broward. Nobody answered the
phone or returned messages, despite attempts to reach six departments at 10 a.m.
Recorded messages on many lines directed me to 800 or 866
numbers, but nobody answered them. Maybe they aren't Cuba. Maybe they are Pentagon.
Finally, I hit up Ihatestarbucks.com. There are people complaining about feces on the walls, hazing of workers, and even a great Jimmy Kimmel whack at Starbucks for prohibiting guns in the place.
So take action folks! On this site, they list hundreds of alternatives to the giant coffee shop chain, but none in Miami. Find us some Cuban coffee joints. I recommend Enriqueta's, just across the street from New Times on Northeast Second Avenue. It's independently owned and great. (And, most importantly, they offer take-out coffee at the ventanilla.)
