California Doing California Things

[Politesse]

Starbucks is abandoning SF. Local cafes are happy to move in.
Local cafes from Andytown to Sana'a Cafe are taking over downtown SF

A nice little story about what actually happens when businesses "flee California in droves"; generally speaking, they are replaced by superior local businesses who understand the market better than national franchises because they live here and know what their customers actually want. You know, like how capitalist free markets are supposed to work. I'd love to see an SF downtown with no national mega-box stores at all some day. Why do we need to give up city block after city block to lazy, dated, and increasingly unprofitable chains like Nordstrom's or McDonald's, when we could have that space freed up for our own, better, stores, that are more interesting for consumers and whose profits are more likely to remain in the state economy?

From the article:

Crabbe isn’t the only local cafe owner who was excited to have the opportunity to lease a space that was occupied by Starbucks for years. Yemeni coffee chain Sana’a Cafe is taking over three former Starbucks in downtown SF, and Spro Coffee Lab opened a new cafe in an ex-Starbucks at 201 Spear St. earlier this month, as the San Francisco Business Times reported it planned to do. Ritual Coffee is planning to open a new cafe in October at a former location of the chain at 295 California St., and Compton’s Coffee House is set to take over another Starbucks at 359 Grant Ave.

“We’re seeing an opportunity for small businesses for the first time in a long time to move into these spaces that are in marquee locations,” said Aidan Compton, the owner of Compton’s Coffee House, which also has locations in the Fillmore and North Beach.

 

[ZiprHead]

Starbucks is abandoning SF. Local cafes are happy to move in.
Local cafes from Andytown to Sana'a Cafe are taking over downtown SF

A nice little story about what actually happens when businesses "flee California in droves"; generally speaking, they are replaced by superior local businesses who understand the market better than national franchises because they live here and know what their customers actually want. You know, like how capitalist free markets are supposed to work. I'd love to see an SF downtown with no national mega-box stores at all some day. Why do we need to give up city block after city block to lazy, dated, and increasingly unprofitable chains like Nordstrom's or McDonald's, when we could have that space freed up for our own, better, stores, that are more interesting for consumers and whose profits are more likely to remain in the state economy?

From the article:

Crabbe isn’t the only local cafe owner who was excited to have the opportunity to lease a space that was occupied by Starbucks for years. Yemeni coffee chain Sana’a Cafe is taking over three former Starbucks in downtown SF, and Spro Coffee Lab opened a new cafe in an ex-Starbucks at 201 Spear St. earlier this month, as the San Francisco Business Times reported it planned to do. Ritual Coffee is planning to open a new cafe in October at a former location of the chain at 295 California St., and Compton’s Coffee House is set to take over another Starbucks at 359 Grant Ave.

“We’re seeing an opportunity for small businesses for the first time in a long time to move into these spaces that are in marquee locations,” said Aidan Compton, the owner of Compton’s Coffee House, which also has locations in the Fillmore and North Beach.

Starbucks is not very well liked by lefties due to their anti labor policies. And San Francisco is packed with lefties.

 

[Politesse]

It's not as though they were kicked out by angry lefties or something, they just left. But it's no great tragedy, is my point.

 

[TSwizzle]

It's great that independent coffee shops are filling in the spaces that Starbucks has left but that's not really growing the economy is it? It's trading one coffee shop for another.

 

[Elixir]

It's great that independent coffee shops are filling in the spaces that Starbucks has left but that's not really growing the economy is it? It's trading one coffee shop for another.

Presumably profits from mom and pop’s coffee emporium stay in or are spent in Mom and Pop’s State. Starbucks profits go to Starbucks, with their HQ in WA.

 

[Politesse]

It's great that independent coffee shops are filling in the spaces that Starbucks has left but that's not really growing the economy is it? It's trading one coffee shop for another.

That depends. If they are truly an independent coffeeshop, it's quite likely that more of their income stays in California as opposed to fucking off to Seattle. If they are making more altogether than the Starbucks was, they may be contributing more in tax. And as small businesses tend to stick together, support and promote one another, and so forth, they may be generally beneficial to the business community.

But even if they were doing worse business than the 'Bucks, the nightmare scenario you're always trying to hawk, of a shattered snd abandoned SF downtown, has obviously not come to pass. The "fleeing businesses" are not leaving emptiness and poverty behind, but rather clearing space for a different kind of business more suited to the community.

And if Starbucks just can't make a profit in those footprints, as they claim, they ought to be embarassed if several unrelated indies manage those spots better than they ever did, despite Starbuck's many and obvious corporate advantages.

 

[ZiprHead]

It's not as though they were kicked out by angry lefties or something, they just left. But it's no great tragedy, is my point.

I didn't say the lefties kicked them out. But if a big part of the community where you set up shop refuses to do business there it's going to have an effect on the business.

 

[Politesse]

True. This was the bane of Philz Coffee, recently. Decided to go suddenly go anti-trans right before Pride and managed to piss off nearly all their regular customers. Whoops. Not good signalling for a faux slow bar whose locations were exclusively in SF and LA. Tried to reverse it after the outcry, but their business is still limping.

 

[TSwizzle]

This was the bane of Philz Coffee, recently. Decided to go suddenly go anti-trans right before Pride and managed to piss off nearly all their regular customers.

“anti-trans”? What on earth does that entail?

I saw the deviant Wiener was bitching about something but I thought it was Philz had not bothered to put up pride flags.

 

[Politesse]

This was the bane of Philz Coffee, recently. Decided to go suddenly go anti-trans right before Pride and managed to piss off nearly all their regular customers.

“anti-trans”? What on earth does that entail?

I saw the deviant Wiener was bitching about something but I thought it was Philz had not bothered to put up pride flags.

It's not that they didn't put them up. They've always been up, it's been part of their brand from the start. It's that their new CEO made a big announcement that they were all coming down, in a bid to appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies. He's since retracted the policy, but the damage is done.

Yes, they had the "right" to offend all their most loyal customers and most of their employees. But was it smart? There are literally thousands of other coffeeshops to go to, in both of the metros they serve, that aren't at all embarrassed to be a safe space (and haven't been bought out and watered down by private equity).

 

[TSwizzle]

Yes, all bit silly. A bit like the Bud Light fiasco with Dylan Mulvaney.

Still not seeing the “anti-trans” aspect but ok.

 

[Elixir]

As long as he did it proudly I don’t see the issue. A pride flag is not a “do not remove under penalty of law” mattress tag or something proscriptive like that.
But maybe a similar missive could be added to the official Flag, to deter those who would profit from its exclusion.

 

[Politesse]

As long as he did it proudly I don’t see the issue. A pride flag is not a “do not remove under penalty of law” mattress tag or something proscriptive like that.
But maybe a similar missive could be added to the official Flag, to deter those who would profit from its exclusion.

You are not a party for whom the symbol would mean anything in the first place, so the only wait you would be able to understand the issue is would be through empathy, or at least education.

 

[thebeave]

This was the bane of Philz Coffee, recently. Decided to go suddenly go anti-trans right before Pride and managed to piss off nearly all their regular customers.

“anti-trans”? What on earth does that entail?

I saw the deviant Wiener was bitching about something but I thought it was Philz had not bothered to put up pride flags.

It's not that they didn't put them up. They've always been up, it's been part of their brand from the start. It's that their new CEO made a big announcement that they were all coming down, in a bid to appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies. He's since retracted the policy, but the damage is done.

Yes, they had the "right" to offend all their most loyal customers and most of their employees. But was it smart? There are literally thousands of other coffeeshops to go to, in both of the metros they serve, that aren't at all embarrassed to be a safe space (and haven't been bought out and watered down by private equity).

I looked into this a bit, and I can't find any mention that removal of the flag had anything to do with being "anti-trans" or that the CEO did it in a bid to "appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies". How about providing evidence for your claims? In general, a smart business owner will keep his establishment "politics free" so as to not alienate large swaths of potential customers, but then again its not a hard and fast rule and SF is a somewhat unique business environment. So, sounds like it was a just clumsy business decision.

On the other hand, it seems like the Philz customers are just being "flag bullies", similar to the infamous "ribbon bullies":

 

[Politesse]

I looked into this a bit, and I can't find any mention that removal of the flag had anything to do with being "anti-trans" or that the CEO did it in a bid to "appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies".

I hate to break it to you buddy, but you ain't woke.

 

[thebeave]

I looked into this a bit, and I can't find any mention that removal of the flag had anything to do with being "anti-trans" or that the CEO did it in a bid to "appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies".

I hate to break it to you buddy, but you ain't woke.

Not sure if you intended that comment as a compliment or an insult, but given your past history, I'll assume the intent was the latter.

 

[Politesse]

I looked into this a bit, and I can't find any mention that removal of the flag had anything to do with being "anti-trans" or that the CEO did it in a bid to "appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies".

I hate to break it to you buddy, but you ain't woke.

Not sure if you intended that comment as a compliment or an insult, but given your past history, I'll assume the intent was the latter.

It's an observation. You aren't aware of the context of the discussion, so you misunderstand the discussion altogether. That doesn't make you dumb or evil or anything, it just means this is one of those things you can't understand. Like why TomC can call himself a fag but it would be rude for you to do so, or why manspreading became a problem on New York subways. There are some things that, try as you might, simply aren't possible for you to grasp. This is exactly how the cards are stacked; it's what it means to be privileged in the first place. You get the gilded cage instead of the iron one, and it makes it infinitely harder to see the cage at all.

I'm talking nonsense, right?

Be that as it may, if you're going to brand your company one way, then change your mind and cave on your One Thing the second it becomes unpopular within your social class, don't be surprised if you leak customers.

 

[Politesse]

It's not really the same thing, but suppose Chick Fil A suddenly announced that they are now open Sundays, and that evangelizing at work is now strongly discouraged for their employees. How would it work out for them? Technically neither of those changes would be outrageous, it would just make them more like nearly every other business in their industry. But contextually, it would be taken as a overt repudiation of their reputation as an explicitly white protestant Christian business. Because contextually, it WOULD be. There's no way anyone in the company would propose such a change without considering the implications of what they're signalling, and consciously choosing to send the signal anyway. Do Sunday hours or anti-harassment rules have to be anti-Christian? No. Would they be in this case? Absolutely.

 

[thebeave]

I looked into this a bit, and I can't find any mention that removal of the flag had anything to do with being "anti-trans" or that the CEO did it in a bid to "appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies".

I hate to break it to you buddy, but you ain't woke.

Not sure if you intended that comment as a compliment or an insult, but given your past history, I'll assume the intent was the latter.

It's an observation. You aren't aware of the context of the discussion, so you misunderstand the discussion altogether. That doesn't make you dumb or evil or anything, it just means this is one of those things you can't understand. Like why TomC can call himself a fag but it would be rude for you to do so, or why manspreading became a problem on New York subways. There are some things that, try as you might, simply aren't possible for you to grasp. This is exactly how the cards are stacked; it's what it means to be privileged in the first place. You get the gilded cage instead of the iron one, and it makes it infinitely harder to see the cage at all.

I'm talking nonsense, right?

Be that as it may, if you're going to brand your company one way, then change your mind and cave on your One Thing the second it becomes unpopular within your social class, don't be surprised if you leak customers.

I get all that, more or less. My problem as originally stated is your claims that the flag removal was done due to "anti trans", plus the Silicon Valley Trump Loving Buddies of the CEO comment, etc. I just ask that you support your claim so we can see that you didn't just make it up and ultimately smear someone as a bigot, but whose intent was not nefarious as you seem to claim.

 

[Politesse]

I looked into this a bit, and I can't find any mention that removal of the flag had anything to do with being "anti-trans" or that the CEO did it in a bid to "appease his Trump-loving Silicon Valley CEO buddies".

I hate to break it to you buddy, but you ain't woke.

Not sure if you intended that comment as a compliment or an insult, but given your past history, I'll assume the intent was the latter.

It's an observation. You aren't aware of the context of the discussion, so you misunderstand the discussion altogether. That doesn't make you dumb or evil or anything, it just means this is one of those things you can't understand. Like why TomC can call himself a fag but it would be rude for you to do so, or why manspreading became a problem on New York subways. There are some things that, try as you might, simply aren't possible for you to grasp. This is exactly how the cards are stacked; it's what it means to be privileged in the first place. You get the gilded cage instead of the iron one, and it makes it infinitely harder to see the cage at all.

I'm talking nonsense, right?

Be that as it may, if you're going to brand your company one way, then change your mind and cave on your One Thing the second it becomes unpopular within your social class, don't be surprised if you leak customers.

I get all that, more or less. My problem as originally stated is your claims that the flag removal was done due to "anti trans", plus the Silicon Valley Trump Loving Buddies of the CEO comment, etc. I just ask that you support your claim so we can see that you didn't just make it up and ultimately smear someone as a bigot, but whose intent was not nefarious as you seem to claim.

I didn't call anyone a bigot. These companies and institutions all rushing to prove that they aren't doing DEI aren't doing so because their CEOs personally hate minorities. It's a perfectly rational business decision, from their point of view. Someone hired by a private equity firm to "clean up" a company for future sale is doing exactly what they were hired to do, when they aggressively normalize company practice, hunt down possible extraneous expenditures, and try to ingratiate the current political/regulatory environment.

But we as consumers are under no compulsion whatsoever to reward that kind of behavior. As I said, there are other coffeeshops in town.