Sunday, July 11, 2004
Alerting Starbucks to a serious problem
One of the many great things about the web is that you can lob free-floating complaints into a company web site, and then post them on your own blog in case they don't actually open their email. Herewith, my point of view on a recent switch in the pastry opportunity at the various Starbucks stores in and around Princeton:
An empty threat, to be sure. But credible unless somebody from the Starbucks complaint office reads TigerHawk, which is highly unlikely.
The store on Nassau Street and the MarketFair shopping center have changed pastry vendors, and the consequences are catastrophic. After having been a loyal and daily Starbucks customer for at least 12 years (since you opened a store across the street from my apartment in Chicago), I am seriously considering a switch. Why? No cinnimon scones, no cinnimon rolls, bad donuts, and even worse "crispy marshmallow squares." And you haven't even substituted a good chocolate chunk scone for the cinnimon scones that we have been eating several times a week for lo these many years. No, all that is available are hideously fruity scones, and a "maple oat nut" scone that could be used as a murder weapon in one of those college town mystery novels. And the "crispy marshmallow squares," which are misnamed to begin with (shouldn't they be "marshmallow crispy squares"? - who wants a crispy marshmallow?), are very badly made. A good "crispy marshmallow square" (if we must use your term) should adhere with only enough marshmallow to bond the matrix of crispies and confer some marshmallow flavor. Under no circumstances should there be visible gobs of marshmallow, as there are in your new "crispy marshmallow squares." Any vendor that makes "crispy marshmallow squares" with coherent streaks of white marshmallow marbling the square like fat through a good steak should be taken out and shot. And so should the purchasing manager who made this horrendous call.
Do something fast, or I will take my $4000 annual Starbucks budget elsewhere. Which will sadden me.
An empty threat, to be sure. But credible unless somebody from the Starbucks complaint office reads TigerHawk, which is highly unlikely.
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