I love that for the most part, the Slog Comments section is dominated by conservatives and Republicans. I never thought of The Stranger as a conservative paper.

Then again, it may be that the average Slog commenter just instinctively hates everything except Cheetos and World of Warcraft...

#99, "$BUX may be 'local' in the sense that it started here, and still maintains its corporate HQ here, but is that all that's necessary for one to buy into that argument?"

No, that isn't all that's necessary. That is why someone else pointed out their massive monetary contributions to the Seattle area.

103 that seems a little paranoid and a lot of these comments are coming from regulars, but, you know, if it makes you feel more secure about your point then I guess you won't be dissuaded.

#104 you either don't know what those words mean or you don't read a lot of Slog comments.

@100: Way to be dismissive for inane reasons and then attack with tired internet lingo. "@99 ftw."

I roast my own beans, bitches. I fly down to Colombia fortnightly.

@99 you're welcome to protest, feel outrage if you must, I can't change that, but it doesn't make me feel any less embarrassed about what Seattle is showing the country with this particular protest.

I will say that you can review the pictures from the Maria Cantwell protest and this one ... there don't appear to be any corresponding faces.

Umm, also ... you'll notice that this blogs comments are now past 100 ... have any of the health care blogs received even half that number? (I did not look up past health care posts, this is based solely on my memory of them)

What would you say appears to be more important here? Can you honestly read through the comments on this blog and others concerning this topic and not feel that people are overreacting and sound rather spoiled and whiny? Maybe you can, but I just can't ...

Um. Wow.

First off, Starbucks is a SEATTLE company. They have provided lots of jobs and money for this area, and helped start the coffee movement here.

Also, how is this different then Seattle's Best or Terrifonzze (or whatever the hell that place is called) that are also 'owned' by starbucks but called something else?

Third, 15th ave isn't a tourist spot. Who are they trying to fool? And why the hell do you care? WHY IS THIS AN ISSUE?

Lastly, Starbucks buys 5-8% (maybe more) of its beans from organic, shade growing farmers. They helped continue the organic coffee trend, and most of the money those people make are from them, and not from coffee. They provide 401k's for their employees, they provide people flexible hours for college students, and pay over minimum wage. Christ. what will satisfy you fucking people? Do the executives need to grow dreads, stop making money, and hold hands with unicorns under a rainbow?

I don't prefer starbucks, because I don’t like their coffee. But I mean seriously, they are TRYING TO BE BETTER. Taking out corn syrup? Awesome. Putting the calorie content of their food and drinks: even better.

And, this remodel, guess what? It provides jobs for people. And just being a business, they will have MORE jobs, regular jobs for people. But ohhhhh nooooooooo they are a corporation, so apparently *evil*? Get real.

This seems a little silly, I can understand protesting an overabundance of Starbucks locations, but not Starbucks marketing itself differently. And this is coming from someone who Starbucks...

@ 100, you don't even read all the comments on this thread or else you wouldn't post such drivel. For better context, go to the first thread they posted and read my comment at 8; then read my responses to the other "go home" troll on this thread. Then go eat shit.

@ 111, I'm not protesting. Hell, I even drink at Starbucks sometimes. This isn't about me, it's about the protesters and what you assume about them.

@Take it all In: I could not agree with your more. Your comments are spot on. no one cares about health care, they don't want to protest or write emails or call maria cantwell. But they can dress up in cute outfits to protest fucking starbucks.

goddamnit seattle, don’t make me hit you!

"IF WE LET STARBUCKS GET AWAY WITH THIS THEY'LL TAKE OUR CUPCAKES NEXT."

@114

Well, all that I presented only went to show further that there is more outcry from Seattle about Starbucks re-branding than health care ...

But feel free to prove me wrong. Either way, I still find this particular outcry/protest pathetic, self-serving and embarrassing.

Matt, you are a troller.

You are the last one out of any thread you pop up in to flame and assert your rightness, you will argue and argue and argue until everybody is tired and moves on.

Get a fucking life. I have the day off so I am playing online, meanwhile you are here every single day and it is pathetic.

Why do people make statements about anything in public? Nobody pays any attention to them. It's so ridiculous and ineffective.

Oh, except a bunch of people are posting about them on the internet all day.

Mmm....

@ 118, Ha ha! Shows what you know, Parker. You're just hurt because I butt heads with you. As I told someone else (did you do as I suggest? probably not) you wouldn't even know I was from Denver if it wasn't in my name. Now, go read my responses to the go-home troll upthread before you embarrass yourself further.

@118 I actually find arguing with him to be a good intellectual mind stretch, personally. I value opposing opinions, I don't mind being asked to question my own, and I love being able to express it here.

what this thread needs is more froth.

who put the sand all up in the protesters Frappuccinos?

and the Starbucks defenders are all democracy hating Seattle Basij, stamping out the Capitol Hill green uprising, and they like to kill kittens.

Matt, I'm not embarrassed, and I'm not reading your responses, troll. I guarantee you you will be checking this thread, commenting on it, and arguing till you are the last one standing.

You are a dumb troll who should not be taken seriously by anybody, and it drives you nuts to be called out on it.

Oh, for chrissakes.

Do you nitwits know for a fact that these protesters absolutely do NOT perform any sort of activism or protest ever?

It's a performance. It's hilarious. If y'all are so good at determining which activism is the most important one of them all, then pull your cocks out of your inflatable straw men and do something. At least these guys are having fun.

@124

I don't have a cock ...

I'm all for fun. And if this is not a legitimate protest of something that these people actually find any value in, than by all means, I stand correct and apologize for calling their fun into question.

And no, no factual evidence. Does that make THIS PARTICULAR PROTEST any less pathetic and self serving? Because they may or may not protest other things elsewhere? No ... it is still pathetic and self-serving.

And they are welcome to it. I just don't support it. I find the whole thing to be blown out of proportion and rather ridiculous.

This seems to me like Linda's Plan B for retaliation, after she backed off on her Monday meeting. Maybe not, but either way... much less serious-business, much more funny.

15th Avenue Starbucks and Facade isn't going to hurt anyone. People will pack it the first week out of faux-solidarity, and then it'll be empty again over the next several weeks/months like the previous Starbucks before they declare it epic fail and move along. Smith, meanwhile, will still do a ton of business and you still won't be able to grab a seat at 9 pm on a Saturday.

And Monique better get in her sparring practice, because per #115, she's going to need to hit a lot of people ;P

@23, it's not the production of corporations that pisses me off, it's the transfer of wealth from local communities being shipped out to the global stock market. The undercutting tactics, the fascism, the complete destruction of worker rights, being anti-union in a way that would make wall mart pop a boner. Starbucks treats it's employees like numbers on a book instead of human beings, and only recently, under massive market pressure, have they start buying "some" of their coffee at fair trade prices (so farmers can...you know...live?).

However if you're ok with your value being shipped to the stock market you're more than free to participate, we'll keep protesting for our freedoms and you can get fat watching anti-depressant commercials on your comcrap.

Whoever supports Starbucks and other large chains:

The point to me is that after a company gets large enough, they start having too much pull and ability to get better deals with suppliers than smaller chains and single stores as well as tax breaks. This makes the larger business far easier to make a profit on than a smaller biz. These reasons are exactly why I support local businesses.

If our government fully supported small businesses with tax breaks and free health care for employees and such, and large businesses had to pay dearly in order to become as large as they do and maybe prove levels of service and employment (I'm looking at you Home Depot), I would have no problem shopping at them. Shopping at Starbucks/McDonalds/Walmart in the current situation is your way of telling local business owners F.U., and that you think they shouldn't be allowed to have their own business, but should instead go get a job with no health care benefits and less money than they need to be living in the area. People supporting corporations because of the jobs they provide are ignoring the facts of the current situation. If you feel ok about shopping at Starbucks and their ilk, you might look at the full realities of the situation.

If a corporation was some amazing place that donated some large percentage (like over 10%, not just 1% of some astronomical dollar amount) of profits towards people in the communities they served, provided great health care and well and truly served their communities, I'd support the heck out of them. That's just not the case with almost any large company.

A corporate headquarters in town does not a local business make.

Slog kind of needs nested comments now.

And...scene.

@94 oh please.... Human Rights violations?

Making baristas a joke no doubt.

I knew you wouldn't be able to stay away, you troll.

You haven't made any points, so I really have nothing to address

Pabst is mighty crappy beer in general. However, when it's 90 fucking degrees out, a frosty cold PBR goes down pretty fast and cools you off. It's not gourmet. It's not artisan. However, unlike Starbucks, Pabst is 100% Union Made.

Will i go out of my way to drink the swill? No. But guess what, buckos? When a PBR tallboy is two bucks and i've just dragged my painfully sober fat broke law student ass across the hill so that you idiots who won't ever leave the Hill won't have to leave a ten-block radius of Vivace*, i'm gonna drink a PBR. Why? Because a)You ain't payin', and b)It's three bucks with tip.

*=admittedly in the grand scheme of things, Vivace is someplace it's worth never leaving a ten-block radius of. white velvet plz k thx.

@138's screen name FTW! I don't care if Matt in Denver is right or not, calling someone "a gloryhole for penis cum" is the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

troll survey say's, "Seattle loves Starbucks!"
troll survey say's, "Protesting (in phyiscal-human form) is sooo not cool to blog commenters"
troll survey say's, "Corporate Industry is free to (dis)appear how ever it wants to"

would someone please print a starfucks t-shirt so I can buy it... that'll show 'em.

Starbuck's: Fresh out of ideas.

I am a huge fan of coffee but I have never been a huge fan of Starbuck's; I have always found their coffee to be fairly mediocre . Starbuck's is really nothing more than fast food. I admit I am a bit biased being a local independent coffee shop owner. Just like McDonald's I have been to a Starbuck's on more than one occasion. I have also been to every other independent coffee shop in town, but not to spy on them like some peopIe-- I like coffee.
The local independent coffee shops know each other, shop each other and exchange ideas with each other. Starbuck's was like that once. Starbuck's learned the business from Peet's Coffee & Tea. The three founders of Starbuck's knew Alfred Peet personally and even bought their coffee from him originally. We all learned from Starbuck's and each other. We owe a lot of thanks to Starbuck's for not only teaching us but also the general public. Before Starbuck's you couldn't go any place in the country really and order a double tall latte without either getting funny looks or mistakenly directed to the local gay bar.
There is irony in how the teacher has now become the student, albeit a bit of a deceitful one. Starbuck's merchandising and design teams have been up in their ivory tower for so long they couldn't come up with an original thought between them; so they thought sneaking around spying on neighbors and stealing ideas, was ok--which is extremely arrogant on their part. Maybe such a privileged mentality is to be expected given how everyone credits them with inventing something that existed long before they did.
The debate is not really local vs. non-local, it is about small business versus multinational corporation. Small businesses employ somewhere around 98% of the employees in Washington State and not large corporations Think about that for a minute. There is no doubt that Starbuck's is a local company, but Starbuck's is pretend it is something other than what it is, like someone in the throes of a midlife crisis they are trying to recapture their glory days. I applaud their efforts. Being more neighborhood centric is great. Trying to revive a poorly performing store is equally admirable. It is hard to fault them but authenticity cannot be co-opted, bought or stolen. The real question is why isn't Starbuck's doing this to Starbuck's? Why hide who they are? Why can't they create a new unique identity for their corporation instead of stealing someone else's?
I wonder, will their new un-branded stores also be staffed with rude, surly hipsters? What other companies are going to try "Un-branding" themselves? How many already have but we don't know? Will Supercuts now create a chain of hip boutique salons?
All I have to say is Starbuck's may think they have the coffee down but, quite honestly, the day they came out with instant coffee was the day I lost all remaining respect for them. They started out as the alternative, the new, the better choice over Folgers and the like. Now they have become the beast they had slain.

Nescafe no es cafe.

Oh by the way I have one thing to say about all this talk of organic, shade grown, fair trade coffee. If you really wanted to help and be more green... don't drink coffee. You can try and be more conscientious but in the end you really are just making yourself feel better. Like cold medicine...it just masks the symptom.

People seem focused on Linda but if you read the article in the Seattle Times you would know that Starbuck's actually infiltrated these places. Several coffee houses were repeatedly visited, Seattle Coffee Works, Victrola, Lladro... the list goes on. They came in with folders and clip boards on mass taking pictures and notes; copying down and dissecting the original ideas of the independent coffee houses often times crowding out legitimate customers. They never even bought anything. It is not about Linda at all--she just happens to be next door.
No one would have been bothered by their "Borrowing" ideas if it wasn't for the way Starbuck's had gone about it. Starbuck's used tactics that were really unforgivable. They came in with the attitude "Hey, we are Starbuck's and we can do what we want." Starbuck's is pedestrian and nothing more than the Walmart of coffee who seem hell bent on killing off small businesses. Large Corporations are not the major employers of this state, small businesses are. Small business employ the majority of workers in Washington and re-branding , or rather un-branding stores does not create new jobs.

The only reason we didn't like the Starbucks people visiting our store is because they didn't care to buy a single cup of coffee! (And even when we offered them a free taste they refused)

All they need to do is show some basic courtesy. Otherwise no one should be peeved about being spied out by SBUX. Cmon folks -- at the end it's all about who makes the better coffee and fits in better with their community. In that regard, if SBUX can do a good job at that then they should be applauded. If they can't they'll fall into oblivion.

Is Starbucks local? They may return some portion of the revenues from their global chain of stores here, but do they really need the people of the Seattle metro area the way the local Cafe Ladro or Cupcake Royale chains do?

No they don't. Everything they rely on from this area (headquarters staff, store personal, service providers, vendors, and last but not least, customers ) is optional to them. Even more than Boeing or Microsoft which are each dependent on a large, specialized, highly trained workforce not easily or widely available, Starbucks could locate their Seattle operations most anywhere and do just fine. They could close every store in Seattle and do just fine.

Maybe it's this reality which makes Starbucks seem disingenuous in its latest marketing plan."Local" to them is just an image without the any of the substance of real mutual dependency.

I am going to check out this place tomorrow. I will offset the evil corporate factor by eating at Smith's or Oddfellows. The thing about Victrola is that while it is great in the wintertime, in the summertime, I want a Frappacino or equivalent. Ladro does have Frappacinos, but their chairs and tables are hard and uncomfortable. Caffe Vita: too dark. Stumptown: I've only been there once, so I can't judge. I do enjoy Tully's and Peet's as non-evil alternatives to the 'Bucks.

and they get awesome uniforms too at starbucks....

I think the only difference in the health care and benefits provided by either is that starbuck's is a wall street press release...

value for their labor? shoot me when my life becomes a corporate commodity.

Enough of the corpophobia. Corporations are people, too! On the other hand, this "protest" is bringing the new shop enough notice that I am starting to suspect they were hired by Starbucks themselves.

This is hilarious. "To think we could have local everywhere" is a brilliant line.