I would posit that places with strict restroom control have a significant population of homeless persons within walking distance.
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I have joined others at a Starbucks and enjoyed a cup of coffee on a few rare occasions but the ambience exuded by cups of brew costing $8+ gave me the impression I was out of my league. But McDonaldâs coffee is above average and their egg McMuffin beats the breakfast bars that are so highly touted by several motel chains. Of course itâs all a matter of taste and I acquired my appreciation for coffee in Marine Corps mess halls and Mississippi truck stops so no one is looking for my rating. Come to think of it many might see my truck at a fast food stop and decide to move on down the road.
A small cup of their âregular coffeeâ costs ~$2.00 inâsupposedlyâhigh-cost-of-living NJ.
If you insist on ordering one of their large âfancyâ drinks (the ones with whipped cream and other things that I shun), then I suppose that the cost is probably in the area of $8.00.
Incidentally, I refuse to use Starbucksâ jargon of referring to their small coffee as âtallâ. When I order coffee and the barista asks if I mean âtallâ instead of âsmallâ, my standard answer is, âonly if midgets are considered to be tallâ. Yes, I get a lot of quizzical looks.
Starbucks is a marketing triumph of creating a new demand in an area of business that is very old. It started with, to me, undrinkable strong coffee and overpriced snacks with, to me, limited appeal.
You can credit the Seattle TV connection with the âsnob appealâ coffee drinkers (Kelsey Grammar, etc.) for the overall popularity. A good cup of coffee served in clean surroundings should not cost more than $1.25 or so. McDonalds wisely subsidizes their coffee with their food products. I seldom pay more than $1 per cup.
What turns me off most at Starbucks is the stale strong coffee stink that lingers, especially in the winterâŠ
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Is the attraction to Starbucks really the beverages? I have seen a television commercial for a hay fever medication with a carpool of young ladies getting huge drinks on their way to work and one girl sneezes and blows the whipped topping off her coffee(?). Do young people these days crave such a drink to get their day started? I get the impression visiting there is just the trendy thing to do and we are a nation of trendy people.
Yes, and they also crave those drinks in the middle of the day.
Donât you think that there is a connection between the consumption of HUGE, overly-sweetened drinksâtopped with whipped cream & syrupâand the obesity epidemic among the young?
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Yes, itâs a national epidemic. A few years back I did a contract project for a French engineering firm. Their office was located in a Paris suburb. Half a floor in the office tower was dedicated to restaurant space with excellent food. The food was very healthy and portions were small by US standards.
The coffee was served in cups about half the size of McDonalds and tasted great. Many drank it straight without cream or sugar.
I did nor spot a single overweight person in the whole building.
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Yup!
Obesity is starting to be problematic in The UK, but it is still rare in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and most other European countries. Itâs really all about things like portion size, and about walking and other forms of exercise.
In this country, young people regularly eat Burritos for lunch that couldnât fit inside my XL hat, and they typically refuse to walk further than from a parking space that is adjacent to their destination. And, they tend to walk at an incredibly slow pace. One of my lines that usually cracks-up my friends is, âIâve seen people walk to the electric chair faster than that kid is strollingâ.
@VDC I have a sociology professor friend who has a theory about all this. He believes that countries with a high degree of social development and expensive food relative to income have the best looking citizens. He cites Sweden, Norway, France and Japan as examples.
On the other hand, countries with high social development and high living standard and relatively cheap food produce the fattest citizens, for reasons you have already mentioned.
In the United Kingdom food is still relatively cheap and few ride bikes anymore. That country has the fattest people in Europe. In Asia, Malaysia has cheap food and the most obese people percentage wise on the continent.
The US has very cheap food and a high living standard, so no one even needs to walk. The results are obvious.
Then there is New Zealand with cheap food, high level of development, but relatively few fat citizens. From what I know about these citizens, they worship the outdoors and are always active.
So, maybe my professor friend has something there.
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It seems most fast food restaurant adds these days tout a three or four layer sandwich that must be 2500 calories or more all by itself. Who buys those things?
A couple of years ago I had lunch at Perkins in Moses Lake, Washington.
I ordered their hamburger with fries and was surprised I also got a bun with butter on the side. The waitress told me they had to do that with all customers. In countries with high food costs this would obviously never happen!
In France a Big Mac is $8.35; only the :âfritesâ are relatively cheap. Coffees are also much smaller than in the US and Canada.
I think it is obvious that this stuff is marketed toward their younger customers.
At my age, I prefer something that tastes wonderful and that wonât add excess pounds or affect my blood sugar and cholesterol. However, in my younger days, I did tend to go for âwretched excessâ, and that is clearly what is being pushed by those places.
Iâm an average size person. The tall sandwich I saw advertised the other day was so thick only Donald Trump would be able to take a bite out of it!
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Only a few people can do that, and many of them wouldnât. Iâve seen a few American football player diets, and most are very healthy. They would never eat a sandwich like that, though they could easily do it without exceeding the number of calories they burn during the season. One safety tweets pictures of his post-victory ice cream jag. He has a huge pile of ice cream, often with lots of extras (candies on top). He also takes a lot of gas for it, but he laughs it off. He burns something like 7000 calories every day during the season, and 2000 to 3000 calories of ice cream one day a week isnât going to hurt him. For you and me, that would be crazy.
Iâll have to say that I do enjoy the Egg McMuffins once a week or so. Also I hate to say it but their pancakes are among the best. They must have the formula correct and they are never burned or gooey. Nothing worse than getting to the center of a pancake and finding it not cooked.
Speaking of pancakes, the Lyons here have a Superbowl Sunday pancake feed fund raiser. The mix they use is a closely guarded secret recipe (like Coke) and they are good. However, the McDonalds pancakes are a close second. I use the drive through.
Hmm, is there any way this discussion can get back onto car topics? Thanks.
Iâve seen this with the Wawa convenience store chain. Many locations have small sample cups on the counter, the size of an espresso shot, that you can use for any self-serve coffee for free, and they generally have freely accessible restrooms (except for older, smaller stores). Ones with panhandlers donât seem to have public restrooms (Iâve seen one with a restroom with a code lock on the door â ditto for a Whole Foods not far away) and donât give free samples.