Beachcombing – Starbucks

Last week we learned that two Long Beach Starbucks locations would be closing. One is at Palo Verde and Stearns; the other is in the Marina Pacifica Shopping Center in the 6300 block of Pacific Coast Highway.

Considering that we have about 30 Starbucks stores in Long Beach, losing two doesn’t seem all that bad. It’s all part of a $1 billion restructuring plan announced by CEO Brian Niccol. The bigger picture involves 69 stores closing in Southern California last weekend because they are “underperforming.”

In California, Starbucks has 3,184 stores and there are about 17,186 locations in the United States.

I never did like coffee because of its bitter taste. Then Nestle’s Coffee-mate came along with its French Vanilla and sugar-free options. Each day is now started with a cup of French roast joe prepared in a Keurig machine within minutes.

And the price is right. I figure that each cup costs around $.50, with about $.30 going for the coffee pod and the rest for the purified water, Coffee-mate and the Keurig unit. Compare that to the cost of a Starbucks drink in the range of $6.50 to $8.

The average American coffee drinker consumes 3-plus cups per day. I’m good with just one, followed by juices and water.

Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, after crude oil. Around 2.25 billion cups are consumed each day, represented by $270 billion in sales at cafes and other markets annually.

Perhaps the real reason that I’m not a regular customer at Starbucks is because of the confusion over sizes. They offer names like short (8 oz.), tall (12 oz.), grande (16 oz.), venti (20 & 24 oz.) and trenta (31 oz.). Since I do not speak Italian, it took me several visits to learn that grande was my desired size – medium.

I recently learned that when Starbucks founder Howard Schultz visited Italy in the early 1980s, he was “inspired by the Italian coffeehouse culture. To bring some of that authenticity and flair to Starbucks, the company adopted Italian terms for its cup sizes rather than the standard English small, medium, large.”

Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte is popular this time of year at local stores; at Christmas it’s Peppermint Mocha. Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino is one of my favorites, but a McDonald’s Caramel Frappe is just as good, costing less than $5.

This java discussion must conclude with the fact that September 29 was National Coffee Day. It started as a promotional event in the 2000s but hasn’t been attributed to a single founder or as a proclamation. Globally there’s an International Coffee Day, which is October 1.

My birthday was September 30 and is notable for no significant recurring annual observances and historical events. But some references note that National Coffee Day is observed on both September 29 and 30.

In the words of nobody famous, born on September 30, “Life happens, coffee helps.”

Let’s wrap up this discussion with a few more installments of pun-ography:

• Better latte than never.
• Bean there, done that.
• I tried to catch some fog. I mist.
• When chemists die, they barium.
• Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
• A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
• I know a guy who’s addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.
• How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.
• I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.
• This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.
• I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I can’t put it down.
• Don’t worry, be frappe.

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