Starbucks recently announced that they would begin selling their “short” cups of brewed coffee for $1 a piece, and offering free refills of brewed coffee as a test in their home market of Seattle.
CEO Howard Shultz also announced that breakfast sandwiches were on the way out. From Starbucks Gossip:
** The warm sandwiches “are going to be out by year’s end.” In the meantime, they will be “de-emphasized.”
** Serving sandwiches got in the way of employees’ “ability to make the perfect shot of espresso.” In other words, spending time on sandwiches took away from the focus on coffee.
** The sandwiches will be replaced with “a breakfast menu that delivers what our customers are asking for.”
Does this matter to anyone? We were too scared to eat these creepy looking sandwiches. They looked like they were made of failure.
Starbucks to get rid of warm breakfast sandwiches [Starbucks Gossip]
(Photo:cleverclaire)
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Usually when people complain that Starbucks coffee is “overpriced,” (or tastes “burned”) it’s because they don’t realize they are talking about lattes. The drip coffee is very reasonable and tastes like regular coffee. But most people don’t usually get drip coffee, they get a LATTE – which is espresso and steamed milk – a much heftier item as far as preparation, equipment and ingredient. Espresso is more expensive than regular coffee and tastes a LOT stronger (and packs more of a caffeine punch)! Personally, I like a triple-shot grande. Plain drip coffee just tastes like mud-water to me.
I wonder if they will have things like Panera bread has for breakfast items – they have this little souffle-quiche thing that is amazing. Oh, and their mochas are superior to any mocha I’ve had anywhere!
@rjhiggins:
The taste of the American consumer has long been gone!
Huh. I actually liked the breakfast sandwiches! They beat a mcmuffin any day.
But I can see how they weren’t great for workflow — you’d basically have to put an employee just on sandwich patrol. If there weren’t enough sandwiches for a full employee, it took them off whatever they were doing before.
Guess it’s all premade muffins from here on out. So much for morning protein.
@Sherryness: No, quite the opposite – I think their drip coffee tastes burned – it’s typically incredibly acidic as well, which I don’t enjoy.
The egg substitute/turkey bacon/non-American cheese breakfast sandwich was actually pretty good, and very high in protein – eating fruit or pastry for breakfast (or skipping breakfast) leads to me passing out twenty minutes later. It was handy when I was running late for work.
Wait a minute, we can use this same logic and say that Starbucks should sell nothing but coffee. No food, no desserts, nothing. If you want an apple pie, it takes them at least 2 minutes to get it and put it in a container, get the napkins and fork. That 2 minutes could be used to get another customer a coffee.
the spinach breakfast wrap is my FAVORITE. I really hope they decide to include it in the breakfast menu.
@loganmo:
…I don’t see how that requires tons of attention?
or skill or a specialized title and premium wages.
@ CAMILLE_JAVAL
Well, that’s why I said “usually” – because that’s what most people are referring to. As far as actual plain drip coffee I really can’t judge – because I don’t like drip coffee. To each our own.
I apologize to the forum – I don’t know how to that at sign thingie when replying.
@stinkingbob: It takes a lot longer to prepare and package a breakfast sandwich than it does to package any of the ready-made items in the case.
@facework: The irony here is that the beans McDonald’s uses in most regions are from Seattle’s Best Coffee, which is a Starbucks company.
Good riddance, the sandwiches were microwaved nastiness.
I’m just stoked about $1 coffees. But hang around long enough to get a refil? No thx.
@mercurypdx: I was thinking the same thing. Pepper bacon. Dammit.
There are four Starbucks all within a block of where I work in NYC. Lines are easily 20 people deep in the morning. Everything moves along quickly until someone orders a sandwich. After that, it’s a slow slog to the registers.
Can’t say they’ll lose any business in NYC because of the sandwich departures (if it happens). They’ll probably even pick up more customers because the lines will keep moving.
My vote for the best coffee goes to Intelligensia’s Black Cat Espresso. Sweet baby j, that’s good coffee. Worth the price to ship it from Chicago.
The Breakfast sandwiches are also a tasty lunch!
Could have sworn their sandwiches suck balls…
Breakfast with no eggs does not do it for me. That is why I choose Cosi over SB for breakfast. In future I can not see a reason why McDonnalds monkey could not make Americano from superautomatica machine just as well as SB.
Their sandwiches are tasty, and they are about as good as you are going to get given their preparation constraints, but I think they are a little too greasy and chewey. It’s an artifact of the prep style- the edges of the bun and the cheddar cheese get burnt and go yucky.
If they came up with a different way to prepare the sandwiches that focused a little more on quality, they’d have a winner. Heck, I think all it’d take is cooking the sandwich open faced and adjusting the cook time.
For some reason, I’ll pay $3 for coffee but not $6 for a sandwich or cheeseplate. Maybe because the coffee is a specialty and the food is the same stuff you can get at the prepared foods section of the grocery store, or at Wawa.
You know the recession is official when Starbucks introduces a $1 “value menu.”
I’m sure the profit on the sandwiches wasn’t enough to convince the bean counters that they were worth it. I never had one of their sandwiches, so I guess I won’t miss them.
My roommate says the sandwiches suck ass exactly because of the reason you mention: they take too much time away from MAKING THE COFFEE!!
They were tasty though. I did have a sample once.
This is horrible. I JUST fell in love with their sandwiches, after a friend bought me one. Now they’re getting rid of them? Damnit.
@JustEaton: Dammit too. It’s all preference.
@Chongo: Yeah, I love those. A little too chewy, especially the cheese (which shouldn’t be in the first place, but it’s the low-fat variety, so it comes with the territory, I guess) but objectively pretty good nonetheless.
Those who are making comments about the coffee tasting burnt are actually just announcing to the world that they have a unsophisticated palate. Not surprising when you notice how many people are talking about McDonald’s products as if they were actually food.
Personally, I can appreciate both Starbuck’s and Dunkin’ Donut’s coffee.
And for those who are complaining about Starbuck’s coffee being expensive – I’m always surprised at how cheap it is for a premium product. But I only get a small (What do they call actually it? A tall?) plain coffee, which is equivalent to a normal sized coffee someplace else. If you’re getting one of their enormo-humongous monster coffees, of course it’s going to be more than a regular coffee at a gas station. And if you’re getting a latte or cappuccino or any one of their other fancy drinks, some of which are more like dessert than coffee, well of course you’re going to pay more. Get a dessert in a nice restaurant and it will probably cost more than a cup of coffee there too.
Starbucks… diarrhea. Dunkin Donuts… pisswater.
TIM HORTON’S OWNS THE COMPETITION. I only wish they’d expand into the states more to show the chump coffee hack shops how to sell delicious coffee to the masses.
I’m thinking about their Canadian Maple donut right now….
I like the breakfast sandwich. Starbucks is the only place I know of that I can get a sandwich made with turkey bacon. Now I’ll have to find some other place in Chelsea that sells non-pork breakfast sandwiches. Suggestions?
This is definitely a positive development. Food is Starbuck’s weak spot–everything tastes like concentrated preservatives. I may actually start buying coffee there in the morning if the elimination of breakfast sandwiches makes the line move faster.
One-dollar coffee would also be awesome, but I’m not holding my breath that that particular development will make it to NYC. That would put SBUX in competition with the street vendors, which seems like a recipe from some sort of inter-coffee-purveyor rumble.
@pauljunk: You know it. Tim Hortons’ Breakfast Sandwich is a beacon from the gods, as well. It’s almost exactly like a mcmuffin, except instead of an english muffin they serve it on a tea biscuit. Essentially, they give you egg, cheese and bacon/sausage wrapped in butter. Delicious!
Their coffee isn’t great by any shakes, but it’s reliably not bad, and downright saintly whenever you’re in small-town Canada.
@fairywench: Actually, no. I have a sophisticated palate and can recognize spicy/fruity/nutty/sweet and a myriad of other tastes in coffee (and can even tell you where coffee is grown that is known for specific tastes). Starbucks coffee, in all of its varieties, has none of these flavours. It is masked by the flavour of the roast, which is to say that it is completely overroasted. I’ve never had a cup of ‘mild’ roast coffee from Starbucks that wasn’t horrid.