Pros:

When you load cash value onto a Starbucks card and register it at Starbucks.com, not only is daily wi-fi access free, but you get free refills of regular brewed coffee for as long as you’re onsite. So start with a cup of coffee for about a buck fifty, and you have a comfortable place to work with power, wi-fi, and all you-can-drink coffee. You can track your usage and expenses going back several weeks, and reclaim value from any lost cards registered to you.

Cons:
Power can be hard to come by in many Starbucks stores. Often the music is interesting, but lately some of it has just plain sucked.

Alternatives:
Local coffee shops (such as in the Eastern Sierras where Starbucks closed their store in Mammoth Lakes) seem to have wi-fi that is flaky at best, often password-protected and unavailable if you’re passing by after hours, some don’t serve decaf at all (one offered to make a decaf Americano instead, then hit me with a $4.25 bill for it), bathrooms have no room, no mirror, or no lock on the door, and sometimes the power is nonexistent (or worse, cuts out while your external disk drive is spinning). A consistent experience can be a major plus.

One comment on the people who claim that term #1 of the group is an issue… did you actually read it, including the part about the right of Starbucks to use the photo only applies to use relative to the group, and that part that assures photographers that no other use is authorized without prior written authorization? That seems reasonable and generous given the more common (and highly obnoxious, even unethical) terms from other companies which insist on the unlimited right to do anything with your photos anywhere, for anything, without your knowledge or consent. Kudos to Starbucks for taking a more enlightened approach.

Just when you thought you could trust a company they turned into a corporation without compassion.

Dancing from foot to foot having found parking difficult, I stated to their staff, “I am a Starbucks customer worldwide” and they did not give me the door code (which I learned is 123 by the way.)

Oh, and check out Rule #1 for posting your photos to their Flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/starbuckscoffeecompany/discuss/72157622434125041

Again, seriously?

Ah well, good luck with landing that gig with them…

My local McDonalds in Mexico City usually got my custom on Mondays and Weds when I worked nearby. It was one of many restaurants closed down during the Swine Flu crisis.

Now all is normal. But they still have the Swine Flu poster up, urging you to wash your hands before you eat. However, they’ve recently put another sign up, right next to it, telling customers they must buy their meal before using the bathroom to wash your hands. The bathroom is locked, and an attnedant inspects receipts before allowing customers to wash their hands.

What am I supposed to do….buy my food, leave it on the table unsupervised while I wash my hands. No thanks. I go to Burger King instead.

I tried to photograph the two signs, but the chap there got very upset, and seeing as I was on private property I put my camera away.

I’ve heard that in the USA sometimes you have no choice but to go to a Starbucks, but where I am most people who weren’t raised in a strip mall know that there’s always a better place to go. Starbucks coffee is bad and their food is often old. The worst part of it is probably the “Starbucks ethos” or lifestyle, whatever it is they try to instill in people.

If I skip over this post your blog has been nothing but great.

It seems like every day there are multiple businesses asking us to follow their Twitter feed, to get excited about their Facebook page, to friend them on MySpace, etc.

Look: you’re a corporation, you’re not my “friend”. I don’t need to have your same RSS feed fed into every pore of my existence. I don’t need to have 47 TV sets each tuned to every message-spouting orifice of your corporation, desperately afraid that I might miss out on one of them.

Here’s the deal: you pour the coffee, I give you money. That’s it. No expectations of wedding RSVPs and gifts on holidays. No play dates between our children. OK? Please.

And thank God for accessible toilets. Let me put in a plug for The Bathroom Diaries”, which is an on-line guide to finding public restrooms all over the world (Caveat: I’m both a reader, and a contributor to TBD ).

Andy