There Goes the Neighborhood For Real This Time?

starbucks
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

Rumor has it that Sunnyside is getting a Starbucks. We held out for more than a decade longer than the rest of New York, but 2006 marks the end of the silent battle. I think that Starbucks waits until a local non-chain coffee place opens in a neighborhood and then figures that their time has come. The local place has, after all, already taken the risky first step of testing the waters.

That place in our divine neighborhood is, of course, The Grind, which I simultaneously support and bad-mouth. I really do want it to succeed. The Starbucks will be opening about eight blocks from The Grind, so I suspect it won't have too much direct effect on its business.

But there's still that matter of the hole in the ground. You know, the cursed block that was once the finest pub around, then a giant fire, then the cause of cracked foundations, and now a hole that's slowly filling up. I fully expect whatever retail space is being created to become a Starbucks. And that's the Starbucks that will kill The Grind.

The Grind makes good coffee, but most of the other problems persist. I don't understand why some things take so damned long. The music is still too loud. The food just isn't terribly good. Why (oh, why) do they insist on serving fondue? I fear the newfound competition in the neighborhood will cause The Grind's infinite crappiness to be temporary. Yet, in theory, I would rather support a locally-owned and operated coffee place than a Seattle-based chain.

But Starbucks, in its cookie-cutter franchising, has mastered the formula of coffee service. The food items are good. The lighting is pleasant. The music is in the background. Most importantly, you order and the coffee/brownie/etc. is in your hand almost immediately. Even when a half-dozen people are waiting for complicated half-caf-half-decaf-soy-chai-lattes, they're not waiting long. At least not as long as I've waited for a simple damned iced coffee at The Grind.

The Grind better work out its kinks fast. If Starbucks is moving in they don't have much time. I'll still go to The Grind over Starbucks. But I will be alone.

Unless, of course, this is all part of a nefarious plan. Virgil thinks, perhaps, that Starbucks opened The Grind. Open a crappy coffee place, you see, so that when the efficient chain moves in, people are already fed up and primed. No one complains about homogeny in an otherwise diverse neighborhood. They just go in and get their frappuccino like the good American consumers that they are.

Hey, what's good for General Bullmoose is good for the U.S.A.