Seal Beach Gets a Coffee Break
Turn the volume down on “The Imperial March,” Starbucks will not be making such a grand entrance into Seal Beach after all.
When the coffee superchain’s plans for the first drive-thru in Orange County were shot down last week by the City Council of this picturesque seaside community, popular pressure won out--to an extent.
Seal Beach almost certainly will still get its first Starbucks, but it won’t be a drive-thru Starbucks.
The Seattle-based chain plans to move its bean bags and espresso machines into an old Burger King building, possibly becoming the only Starbucks with an adjoining kiddie play land.
Sometimes, when you can’t brain Goliath with a rock, you’ve got to settle for kicking him in the shins.
“They’re not going to have a drive-thru. That’s something,” said Kristina Radoczy, co-owner of the Coffee Bean Bakery on Main Street.
Radoczy and husband Leslie purchased the coffee shop a year ago, never thinking they would have to compete with the Starbucks juggernaut so soon. “We have enough competition already,” Radoczy said.
Downtown does have a well-established coffee row--four shops along Main Street and one on Pacific Coast Highway with a drive-thru window, all within three blocks. That’s plenty, say those who are dismayed that Starbucks has turned its attention to the area.
Few companies invite as many taunts for corporate facelessness and avarice as Starbucks. Or as many loyal customers. It has perfected its formula for the “Starbucks experience,” and coffee drinkers know they will get the same drink at any of its 2,200-and-counting stores.
Since its first shop opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle in 1971, the company has grown by leaps and bounds--especially in the last 10 years. It found Los Angeles in 1991, Orange County in 1992.
Seal Beach is just the latest in a long line of new markets the company has identified: Hong Kong and Shanghai got their first stores this year; Zurich and a dozen other European cities will get theirs next.
The perception of Starbucks-as-corporate-octopus was evident when the Seal Beach City Council started talking about putting up a road block on the drive-thru--a plan it had earlier approved.
In the words of Councilman Paul Yost: “I am concerned about their predatory nature. I don’t think it would be too long before Seal Beach had two Starbucks.”
It can happen quickly: London got its first store two years ago; now the countryside is dotted with more than 150.
Out on Main Street, Seal Beach--the charming heart of this city of 27,000 or so--the citizenry has formed its own opinions.
Says Joe Hanley, 70, a loyal customer at the Coffee Bean Bakery: “Starbucks is just like Bill Gates. They want to own everything.”
The City Council, citing safety issues tied to increased traffic, agreed Monday to kick the Starbucks plan back to the Planning Commission. A formal resolution is expected at the council meeting Oct. 9.
This is a community, said Yost, that does not want to be the “crash test dummies for the first Starbucks drive-thru in Orange County.”
There are six Starbucks drive-thrus in Southern California, said Christie Parks, a company spokeswoman in Los Angeles. She said as far as she knew, Seal Beach was the first in the region to nix such an establishment.
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Starbucks executives have at times played along with the perception that the company is an evil empire. In last year’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” Dr. Evil--played by actor Mike Myers--gains world domination by taking over the coffee chain.
“We were a little bit nervous at first about being cast as the villain,” said Alan Gulick, a company spokesman in Starbucks’ Seattle headquarters. “But we’ve always been a company not afraid to look at the lighter side.”
Gulick said some of the greatest misconceptions about Starbucks are that “we don’t care about the community we go into” and that “whatever gets big gets bad.”
“We believe we can get big but still be locally relevant,” Gulick said. “We also believe there’s room for more than one coffeehouse in the community, and that we add to the vibrancy of the community.”
When big franchises move in, they invariably force the smaller businesses to make changes to survive, said Mohammad Ala, the director of Cal State Los Angeles’ Productivity Center and a management professor.
“These small places have to offer one or more things besides what they already offer,” Ala said. Among popular combos: coffee and books, coffee and music, coffee and tea.
Many small business owners, Ala said, don’t have the money to offer a lot of the extra knickknacks a place like Starbucks can offer. And there’s no question that drive-thrus have the potential to bring in more business, he said.
But small coffee shops offer something a megachain does not: a sense of familiarity and lack of urgency.
“These are places you can sit down and talk, and take your time,” Ala said.
Starbucks had its backers at the City Council meeting, but just enough to put together a one-string neighborhood basketball team.
Some council members said they thought Starbucks would not have a huge effect on the smaller coffee shops on Main Street.
“It might hurt the Daily Grind [a drive-thru on PCH], but I don’t think it will hurt the Cinnamon Productions or my favorite, Sweet Jill’s,” said City Councilman William Doane. “But nobody wants it. That’s quite evident.”
Debbie Edwards, owner of the Daily Grind, said she welcomes competition but is upset with Starbucks for allegedly projecting low numbers of drive-thru customers to the city Planning Commission.
“They did not present accurate data,” Edwards said.
The City Council had originally approved the drive-thru but changed its mind after hearing from irate residents and coffee shop owners.
“I’m not a 20-year-old boy or girl. I gag sometimes when I see kids on dates paying $8.50 at Starbucks,” Hanley said as he munched on a bran muffin with regular coffee at his favorite table. “They could have had dinner for that.”
Yet, Hanley admits, even he isn’t free of the Starbucks marketing machine. “Every year at Christmas, my kids say, ‘OK Dad, we’re gonna give you another Starbucks card,’ ” Hanley said, laughing and shaking his head.
Main Street regulars say Starbucks doesn’t really fit in around here: It’s a triple-espresso kind of business; this is more a sit-back-and-sip kind of place.
“You gotta be cool to go to Starbucks. It’s the yuppie thing to do,” said John Dankha, 34, owner of a local computer consulting firm.
Besides, Hanley said, Starbucks coffee is too darn strong.
“To get a mild coffee there, you have to get a latte,” the retired machinist said. “But it’s more expensive, and that’s not my style.”
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Too Much Caffeine?
Starbucks is still on track to open a former Burger King in Seal Beach, but plans to make it a drive-thru were derailed Monday. Other coffee venues in the area:
1. Daily Grind drive-thru
2. Coffee Bean Bakery
3. Sweet Jitters
4. Cinnamon Productions
