Doomed. Doomed. We're all doomed.

I do believe he traveled to Italy and wanted to market an Italian coffee experience to Americans. Then he created Starbucks, which in no way resembles an Italian coffee experience – [Edited to add: but he still wants to sell it to Americans as such. Now he is trying to sell “the Starbucks experience” to Italians.]

It’s possible that people outside of San Francisco, New York, Boston and LA were not drinking espresso before a Starbucks opened near them, but I have to wonder how many Americans go to Starbucks and drink an espresso. I have gotten the impression it is their least popular offering.

Hardly any. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a Starbucks, but I’m not even sure it’s on the standard menu. In my experience, most people order lattes, cappuccinos (if dining in), mochas, various coffee milkshake type things, or drip. Their straight espresso isn’t very good ever since they switched to the automated machines.

I think a lot of tourists are intimidated by traditional Italian coffeeshops and being sneered at for ordering breakfast drinks later in the day, that sort of thing, and want getting a cup of coffee to be the least stressful part of their trip somewhere that they can’t even speak the language. It’s presumptuous of Schultz to think he can teach Italians about coffee, but Starbucks fills that niche for tourists.

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If you read the NY Times article, you will see that Schultz absolutely denies he want to teach Italians anything. So he is cleared of that charge. Milan is really one of the few cities in Italy that is truly an international city, with very popular Sushi bars and burger joints and German beer locales, etc etc. It really isn’t a violation of the cultural norm of Milan to have a Starbucks next to the BurgerMama.

Drinking espresso is what Italians do when they drink coffee, so whatever inspiration Schultz got from Italy, it’s pretty hard to find in the results – but I think he has a lot of success marketing Starbucks to Americans as having Italian cachet and “authenticity” when it is nothing of the sort.

I honestly don’t think Americans are sneered for drinking cappucino later in the day by bariste in Italy. There is a lot of sneering in articles you read written by American tourists or bloggers about “do’s and don’ts” in Italy that really never cross the minds of Italians, and even if a tourist breaks a convention, Italians rarely make an issue of it.

If Americans flock to Starbucks while traveing in Europe I tend to think it is because Starbucks offers sugary and fatty coffee concoctions in huge cups that you can’t get in Italy (but you can get in Vienna.

Starbucks fills that niche for American tourists.

I’m always curious when folks mention restaurant/cafe/bar staff “sneering”. It is the antipathy of what you would expect in the hospitality industry. I’ve never experienced a server sneering at me - regardless of what coffee I might be ordering, the fact I’m not ordering alcohol with my meal (something that always seemed to attract sneerers on Chowhound posts) or not ordering dessert.

I have to say I have seen an awful lot of Parisians sucking on long straws out of huge Starbucks buckets in Paris, whipped cream everywhere.

As for Italy, not a lot of American tourists go to Milan, and we will see how they react [Edited to add: If this place every opens.]. But otherwise, there is still very little Americans can glom onto for familiarty when they visit Italy, whether it be coffee or beer or burgers. Hard Rock Cafe is just about it. Otherwise, you’ve got to eat the local stuff.

[Also edited to add: I think there are more British-style pubs in Rome than places remotely American]

That’s disappointing. Although I suspect they are designed and operated as what foreigners might hope for from a British pub, rather than what most are actually like. As my companion in life describes the pub near our home as a place “where old men go to belch and fart”. And, no, she doesnt mean me.

My dad was once refused a cappuccino at a coffeeshop in Rome when he tried to order it in the afternoon. They laughed at him and said NO. I’ve heard similar stories from other people who tried to order Italian “breakfast” drinks after mid-morning. I think that counts as being sneered at. I don’t think American tourists are alone in being intimidated by that sort of thing.

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Yah, they’re probably similar to the “Irish Pubs” in the US, where any Irishman would likely rather be shot than be seen in one of those establishments :smiley:

In similar vein, a new tapas restaurant has just relocated and opened in the city. We went once when it was in a town about an hours drive away. The menu now seems much, erm, fancier and not really what you might expect in a place in Andalucia. I’ll bet you now that, within a year, he’s dropped the “tapas” references and replaced them with “small plates”.

Hope he just got up and walked out. Places like that don’t deserve to stay in business.

He did, and got a drip coffee at some chain. When he asked the tour group leader, they said “oh, nobody orders cappuccino after 10am in Italy! It’s no surprise they laughed at you.” I think that experience put him off trying to order coffee anywhere but McDonalds or Starbucks when traveling.

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We live in a resort area with tourists from all over the world coming to visit. The line at the sole Starbucks is frequently VERY long whereas you can walk five minutes to a super coffee place. HO doesn’t represent the ‘average’ food/beverage person. CH discussed that to death. People want what they’re familiar with. If there’s no Starbucks (or BK or McD or ???) they find something but if it’s there they’ll go to it.

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I do too. It’s not been my experience in Italy, but then again, I’ve never tried to order a cappuccino in the afternoon (I don’t drink them, even in the morning).

I’m not sneering, but I don’t know why you put “breakfast” in quotes. If an Italian walked into a diner in America and asked for oatmeal for lunch or dinner, they might be told “no, we don’t serve breakfast after 11am” – and it might even say so on the menu. And if several million Italian tourists arrived in America each year asking for oatmeal for lunch and dinner, after a while American servers might exchange a few looks, wondering: “Don’t guidebooks have tips about American eating customs?” A cappuccino is a breakfast item in Italy, and it will forever be odd to an Italian if you want to have at 5pm.

Probably. I’ve never been in one. They appear to be aimed at youth drinking crowd, and the drinks are very cheap. But a few might be holdovers from the war. During the American occupation of Italy, cafe owners hung signs on their doors saying “American Bar” if they had finally started stocking whiskey and other liquors American soldiers came in asking for, and if they had learned how to make American cocktails. It is still a common term for any cocktail bar in Italy – an American bar.

I once got lost in Camden town in London looking for the entrance to the tube, and after my 3rd go-round in the cold rain, I finally decided to go into a pub and ask directions. When I pushed open the door and entered, every face in the crowd — all male – turned to look at me through the smoke – and the place went DEAD QUIET. It flashed through my mind immediately that (a) I might have been the first woman ever to cross that threshold in the history of the establishment and (b) I really do look very, very Irish, and might that be a problem too? I summoned up my very best California-American voice and loudly asked for the directions to the tube – at which point every man in there instantly turned into the most gracious and most solicitous gentleman of good breeding you could hope to meet. One of them gallantly put on his coat to walk me to the Tube entrance.

If I can say just one more thing about Mr Schultz and Starbucks:

It seems to me that prior to the creation of Starbucks, most people in America knew where they could get a big cup of coffee that they personally liked for less than a dollar, or where they could sit somewhere drinking a “bottomless” cup of coffee for as long as they liked. Mr Schultz was trying to sell Americans on a premium product at a much higher price point, and to do that, you simply have to sell them not just coffee, but also a song and dance, or some perception of receiving value beyond a cup of coffee. That value — it appears to me – was the notion that one was having a more sophisticated experience of coffee drinking, in the Italian style. But there is no reality to that if you know how Italians drink coffee. Beyond selling people an image, I think the real success of Starbucks is that they sell sugary, fatty concoctions and baked goods.

Interstingly, the New York Times article points out that Schultz plans to sell coffee in Italy at a much lower price point than Starbucks in the US. Italians would simply never pay what Starbucks typically charges for a a shot of espresso. So I don’t know how Schultz is planning to make money in Italy. He obviously can’t sell Italians on an Italian experience of drinking coffee as something special, and while he talks of bringing Italians the “Starbucks experience”, I haven’t a clue what that is – but young Italians are forever enamoured of what they imagine America is, so maybe the branding will be enough.

So what a Starbucks . I never go there . If you don’t like them , look away and walk on by . Maybe it will provide someone who needs a job in Milan .

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And maybe it will take away 2 or 3 from other people in Milan who needed those jobs and destroy a family business. Happened in towns in America where I lived. That’s “so what.” (Not to mention does the world really need more fat and sugar addicts?)

For the exact reason you stated: in Italy, a cappuccino (and possibly a latte? I’m unclear on that) is considered a breakfast drink, whereas in America and other countries people tend to order them whenever, and quite often after dinner at a nice restaurant. I’ve been offered cappuccinos at so many American restaurants (including Italian places) as an after-dinner drink that I can understand why it’d be a surprise to American tourists that Italians look baffled at such a request. I put “breakfast” in quotes to indicate its categorization in Italy, that’s all.

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Yes, any beverage with a large quantity of milk is taken at breakfast in Italy, on an empty stomach, not after a meal.

Would you get a latte in Italy - other than as a glass of milk. Can’t recall ever seeing it offered.

Go for it Howard.!!

I could not care less if Starbucks or BK or McD opens overseas. Given the world view of America this is just one more line on their OMG List.

If tourists or locals want to sample what is on every street corner in America, let them. It will keep more seats available for my desire to experience the local culture.

I am more concerned about Jake’s Wayback Burger or Dominoes opening in CT

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yes. a caffè latte is the Italian café au lait.