Everything but the Coffee (38 page)

6.
Probably the place to start any study of Starbucks is with Howard Schultz’s memoir,
Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
(New York: Hyperion, 1997). The key books on the Starbucks effect and its history, with a nod (but just a nod) to culture and politics are Taylor Clark,
Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture
(New York: Little, Brown, 2007); and Kim Fellner,
Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008). On the business of Starbucks, see, for example, Nancy F. Koehn, “Howard Schultz and Starbucks Coffee Company,” Harvard Business School Case Number 9-801-361, Feb. 13, 2001; Joseph A. Michelli,
The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007); Michael Moe,
Finding the Next Starbucks: How to Invest and Identify the Hot Stocks of Tomorrow
(New York: Portfolio, 2006); John Moore,
Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Ground of Starbucks Corporate Culture
(Chicago: Kaplan Business, 2006); John Simmons,
My Sister’s a Barista: How They Made Starbucks a Home Away from Home
(London: Cyan Communications, 2005); Kevin Holman, “The Starbucks Model: Creating a Retail Experience for Your Customers,”
Do-It-Yourself Retailing
, Jan. 1, 2005. In a bit of a different twist,
Wall Street Journal
reporter Karen Blumenthal looks at Starbucks as a way to understand stock prices and how they work. See her book
Grande Expectations: A Year in the Life of Starbucks’ Stock
(New York: Crown Business, 2007).

7.
For more on the emergence of this economic moment, see Juliet B. Schor,
The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need
(New York: Basic Books, 1998).

8.
Rob Walker,
Buying In: The Secret Dialogue between What We Buy and Who We Are
(New York: Random House, 2008). See an earlier—though certainly not consumer-as-agent-focused—account in the classic study by Vance Packard,
The Hidden Persuaders
(Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing, 2007).

9.
This is, of course, an enduring argument. See, for example, Don Slater’s discussion of “dupes” versus “heroes” in Slater,
Consumer Culture and Modernity
(Boston: Blackwell, 1977), especially 471. For a recent restatement of the Frankfurt school, see Benjamin Barber,
Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
(New York: Norton, 2007).

10.
Mark Pendergrast,
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola
(New York: Basic Books, 2000), 347–363.

11.
See a more schematic, though similar, scale in Marsha Rickets, “Valuing Things: The Public and Private Meanings of Possessions,”
Journal of Consumer Research
21 (Dec. 1994): 504–521. See also Grant McCracken,
Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988); Mary Douglas and Barton Isherwood,
The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption
(London: Routledge, 1996); and Sharon Zukin,
Point of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American Culture
(London: Routledge, 2003).

12.
Steven Levy, The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006).

13.
David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000); Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

14.
A note on sourcing: Much of this book is based on interviews, conversations, and e-mail correspondence. When I refer to one of these exchanges, I will typically say in the text that I e-mailed or spoke with that person and will not provide any further documentation. Otherwise, if the quote is taken from a published source, such as a newspaper, magazine, book, or online discussion, I will cite that source in a note. For more on the research, see “A Note on the Research” at the end of the book.

15.
E-mail from Kern, Apr. 12, 2007, in author’s possession.

16.
John Deverell, “Coffee Battle Heats Up: Starbucks’ Entry on the Metro Scene Means Stiff Competition for Rival Second Cup and Other Specialty Shops,”
Toronto Star
, Jan. 22, 1996.

17.
Thomas Frank,
What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004); see, for instance, 16–17.

18.
On yuppies as leaders in buying patterns in the 1980s, see Russell W. Belk, “Yuppies as Arbiters of the Emerging Consumption Style,” in
Advance in Consumer Research
, ed. Richard J. Lutz (Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 1986), 514–519. On Starbucks, see “A Latte to Go and $4BN Turnover S’il Vous Plait,”
New York Times
, Jan. 25, 2004. See also William Roseberry, “The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States,” in
The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A Reader
, ed. James L. Watson and Melissa L. Caldwell (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 122–143. For the most influential formulation of a link between buying and distinction making, see Pierre Bourdieu,
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

19.
“Starbucks Serves Up Success during Its 2007 Meeting of Shareholders,”
www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=760
.

20.
In some ways, the process I am describing and the corporate actors I am emphasizing are similar to the main lines of argument stressed by Thomas Frank in his terrific book,
The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

21.
McPherson et al., quoted by Conley,
OBD
, 78–79. For the original work, see Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew E. Bradhears, “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades,”
American Sociological Review
71 (June 2006): 353–375. For more on social isolation and its costs, see also Eric Klinenberg,
Heat Wave: The Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

22.
Robert Putnam,
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000). More broadly, see John Field,
Social Capital
(London: Routledge, 2008). See also Theda Skocpol, “Unraveling from Above,”
The American Prospect
25 (Mar.–Apr. 1996): 20–25.

23.
From “The Internet Movie Database,”
www.imdb.com.
The Paul Haggis film invokes the work of Mike Davis and what Davis sees as the emergence of an extensive and quickly entrenched geography of fear in the modern metropolis. See, for examples, Davis,
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles
(New York: Verso, 1990); and Davis,
Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998). To explore this idea a bit more, see also Michael Sorkin,
Variations on a Theme Park: The New
American City and the End of Public Space
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1992); and Margaret Kohn, Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space (London: Routledge, 2004).

24.
Scott Bedbury,
A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the Twenty-first Century
(New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 89–90. For another example, see Steve McGee, “How to Build Brand Friendship,”
Business Week
, May 9, 2008.

25.
On brands as essentially multimedia outlets, see Celia Lury,
Brands: The Logos of the Global Economy
(New York: Routledge, 2004).

26.
Tim Harlow, “Starbucks Coffee Is Too Expensive, New Survey Says,”
Minneapolis Star Tribune
, Aug. 12, 2008. Between 2000 and 2007, by contrast, Starbucks raised its prices four times without losing much, if any, of its customer base. Laura Petrecca and Sue Kirchoff, “Coffee King Starbucks Raises Its Prices,”
USA Today
, July 24, 2007.

27.
Emily shared her views with Keith Brown, a St. Joseph University sociologist and fellow coffee researcher. In this case, he shared his notes with me.

28.
On the anti-Starbucks turn, see J. Craig Thompson and Zeynep Arsel, “The Starbucks Brandscape and Consumers’ (Anticorporate) Experiences of Globalization,”
Journal of Consumer Research
31 (Dec. 2004): 631–642.

29.
Bruce Horovitz, “Starbucks Tests Letting $1 Coffee at Some Seattle Stores,”
USA Today
, Jan. 24, 2008; Jessica Mintz, “Starbucks Tests Promotions across the US,” July 9, 2007,
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080709/starbucks_promotions.html
?.v=2; Lauren Shepherd, “Starbucks Offers Afternoon Drink Deal Nationwide,” Aug. 5, 2008,
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080805/starbucks_2_iced_drinks.html?.v=2
; Janet Adamy, “Starbucks Plays Common Joe,”
Wall Street Journal
, Feb. 9, 2009. On the larger question of price and marketing, see Stephanie Clifford, “How Low Can You Go,”
Inc
., Aug. 2007,
www.inc.com/magazine/20070801/how-low-can-you-go.html
.

CHAPTER I

1.
On the appeal of the authentic in the marketplace, see these rather uncritical assessments: John Cloud, “Synthetic Authenticity,”
Time
, Mar. 13, 2008; James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine,
Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007). For another look at Starbucks and the appeal of authenticity, see Greg Dickinson, “Joe’s Rhetoric: Finding Authenticity at Starbucks,”
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
34 (Fall 2002): 5–27. The best book on the counterculture and consumption is Thomas Frank’s
The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). On the New Left, see Doug Rossinow,
The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); and T. J. Jackson Lears, “The Iron Cage and Its Alternatives in Twentieth Century American Thought,” in
Perspectives on Modern America: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century
, ed. Harvard Sitkoff (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 296–313.

2.
See Tom Waits, “Intro” to “On a Foggy Night,”
Nighthawks at the Diner
(1975).

3.
Interestingly enough, Petrini’s itself would become a chain and get swallowed up by a bigger company in the 1980s.

4.
Quoted in Warren Belasco, “Food and the Counterculture: A Story of Bread and Politics,” in
The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating; A Reader
, ed. James L. Watson and Melissa L. Caldwell (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 217.

5.
Waters quoted in David Kamp, The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation (New York: Broadway Books, 2006), 131. See also Thomas McNamee, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).

6.
Kamp, The United States of Arugula, 190.

7.
On the elusiveness of the idea of authenticity—specifically, on the idea that authenticity is a search—see David Grazian’s wonderful book,
Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). There is an extensive and valuable literature on the appeal of the genuine and authentic, which includes Lionel Trilling,
Sincerity and Authenticity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); Miles Orvell,
The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture
, 1880–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); and Charles Taylor,
The Ethics of Authenticity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

8.
On the folk revival and authenticity, see Mike Marqusee,
Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan’s Art
(New York: New Press, 2002), 38–39; and Grace E. Hale’s forth-coming book,
Finding the Real: How Middle-Class Whites Fell in Love with Outsiders in Postwar America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

9.
Marty Rourke, “Coffee Master Alfred Peet, 87, Inspired Starbucks,”
Seattle Times
, Sept. 1, 2007. See also Sandra Guy, “Peet’s Smells Coffee Success,”
Chicago Sun Times
, Sept. 14, 1997, and Mark Pendergrast,
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
(New York: Basic Books, 2000), 291–293.

10.
For more on the company’s naming, see Pendergrast,
Uncommon Grounds
, 307–309; “Howard Schultz and Starbucks,” Biography Channel (2007); Taylor Clark,
Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture
(New York: Little, Brown, 2007), 41–42, Melissa Allison, “Starbucks Co-Founder Talks about Early Days, Launching Red Hook and Seattle Weekly, Too,”
Seattle Times
, Mar. 10, 2008; and Chris H. Hieroty, “Starbucks Takes on ‘Sambucks,’ ” Mar. 11, 2003, available at
www.hawaiireporter.com
.

11.
This is largely the point of Gilmore and Pine’s book,
Authenticity
. Rob Walker makes a similar point about the value of the authentic in the contemporary marketplace. See Walker,
Buying In: The Secret Dialogue between What We Buy and Who We Are
(New York: Random House, 2008).

12.
Howard Schultz,
Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
(New York: Hyperion, 1997), 25–26. For more on Schultz’s biography, see Alex Witchel, “By Way of Canarsie, One Large Hot Cup of Business Strategy,”
New York Times
, Dec. 14, 1994; Clark,
Starbucked
, 53–54; Kim Fellner,
Wrestling with Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 15–26; and David Margolick, “Tall Order,”
Portfolio
, July 2008.