If you can't live without the offerings of that green mermaid, you'll be deliriously happy in Zurich. I lost count of how many Starbucks we saw, more than even places like NYC or SF. Both inside and outside train stations.
Of course, if you think this sort of creeping globalism is one of the signs of the apocalypse, my condolences.
Don't recall seeing any in Bern, if that helps.
phred,
Rest assured, there are also Starbucks outlets in Bern. This one was close to the rail station and on the way to my hotel. I don't usually patronize Starbucks, so this was of little concern to me.
Those that like the "green mermaid" will have to do without in Italy, as I don't believe there are any Starbucks there (at least none that I've ever seen).
It's funny how Starbucks is a company people love to hate. I remember when it was a spunky start-up out of Seattle, much admired in the early 1990s for changing our relationship with coffee. When I traveled to the east coast, I was appalled that I could not get decent coffee. Some of my Italian friends actually like treating themselves to Starbucks when outside of Italy...but they don't want to see it at home. :-)
My personal conspiracy theory is that Starbucks is in cahoots with the NSA. Every Starbucks have cameras in them and the NSA knows that every American traveler, no matter where they are in the world, will eventually pass through a Starbucks and, voila!, the NSA will have a picture record of where you have been! On my recent trip to Paris, I was shocked, shocked and appalled, to see a Starbucks just off the Place du Tertre in Montmartre! Is there no escape??!!
It works both ways. Hardly ever hear people mentioning the European retail invasion. Two of the dominate supermarket chains in my neck of the woods are part of European conglomerates:Ahold, and Delhaize. Aldi's has 1200 outlets in the US, H&M and Ikea each have 200+ outlets, just to name a few. Austrian Red Bull is an unstoppable force.
All the major brands of bread sold in the US are part of a Mexican conglomerate: Bimbo. A lot of the suff on supermarket shelves are from Euro conglomerates like Nestle, Dannon, Barilla, Unilever, and Parmalat. ...and have we forgotten who now owns Budweiser;)
The only countries I've been in where I haven't seen a SBX are Thailand and the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean - that was a few years ago though so I would fully expect to see them in those places next time I visit. I've bought coffee from them in China, England, Switzerland, Italy, etc...they are infecting the world but, honestly, it's nice to have when you're beat tired in the afternoon and need a little pick-me-up! Love-hate for sure from my perspective.
Walmart and Starbucks are on my "Do Not Enter" list.
To Anita's point, on my trip to Japan after a while I just couldn't look at another bowl of ramen or a tonkatsu or sushi. I discovered at Starbucks you could get a simple sandwich or salad, just like here. And of course those funky coffee drinks my nephew craved.
I've always been a bit curious when I read of fellow traveler's stopping for a cup of Starbucks when traveling abroad; oh well, different strokes for ...
But, Norma your comment - Walmart and Starbucks on your do not enter list struck me as a bit heavy handed. While I try to buy local and support small businesses, I've paid particular attention to SBUX and they face the challenge of behaving as a socially responsible mega-corporation. And, I'll quickly admit that my list is selective at best but it does strike me as a geniue effort of SBUX to social issues: offered health benefits to it's worker when others denied or relied on the ACA; scholarships for post-secondary education thru Arizona State; moving towards a living-wage standard when states and the country make glacial progress; attempt to support Fair Trade practices; a commitment to hire 10K vets within 5 years; and, many others I'm certain that I could site if I were "writing a paper for , a journalist, or an author. But, I'm not and hope that my andecotal assessment of SBUX has a modicum of accuracy. Walmart - well there's another story and it's not pretty and I'll not dwell on the horrid practices and offerings offered by Walmart. I will simply vote with my dollars and try not to cross their threshhold until the company fundementally changes their business practices.
I'd hope, Norma, that you'd consider de-coupling SBUX from the corporate scoundrels from Bentonville. Enjoy your coffee at local shops but consider giving Starbucks some consideration for their efforts.
I have no knowledge or opinion on corporate scoundrel-ism with regard to Starbucks. In my country there is a rival coffee shop company called Second Cup which I always choose over S'bucks.
No Starbuck stores in Italy.
Love Starbucks?
Nope.
I used to drink their overpriced coffee which I thought tasted quite good. I used to get a decent 40% discount, stars, and the offer (never taken up) to write something they wanted to call my name on my cup.
Then I discovered that, in the UK at least - I make no judgements on other countries - they pay zero UK corporation tax and that apparently despite making many millions of pounds of sales at many many UK outlets for several years they have manipulated the books in such a way that they have never made a profit, so no taxes there either. They pay the very minimum pay to their employees (despite allowing them to get a benefit of the correspondence University if any of them take that up) that they can get away with, and sometimes lower. All the supplies have to be bought from another Starbucks subsidiary in another European country with very low taxes, even though the actual supplies never visit that country, and all the income goes to yet another Starbucks subsidiary in yet another country (Netherlands) where again they have negotiated negligible taxes. None of that money, from what I have read, pays taxes either in the UK or the US.
That's corporate responsibility? To the shareholders maybe - until the company gets done for big back taxes. Certainly not for the employees and taxpayers in the UK and the US.
I never, ever, buy anything from them now, and none of my associates here do either.
"Corporate scoundrels" indeed.
When I have re-visited a European city after eight or ten years, typically the most noticeable change is a lot more Starbucks.
Bigger than corporate tax avoidance, why drink Americans style coffee when you can enjoy local European coffee?
On the tax avoidance:
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568432-starbuckss-tax-troubles-are-sign-things-come-multinationals-wake-up-and-smell
Starbucks is not thought to be using the “Dutch Sandwich” and “Double
Irish”, even if these sound like items on its menu. They are legal
tax-avoidance techniques believed to have been used by, among others,
Google, which was also called to testify before Parliament. Most of
Google’s revenues in Europe are booked in Dublin, then shifted via
royalty payments to a Dutch subsidiary, before whatever is left is
recognised as profits by a subsidiary in Bermuda, which levies no
income tax. Another online giant, Amazon, told parliamentarians that
its low British corporate-tax bill—£1.8m in 2011—was due to its
British operations merely providing back-office services to its main
Europe-wide business, which is based in low-tax Luxembourg. Although
Starbucks denies using tax havens, it admits to having negotiated a
secret low rate of tax with the Dutch taxman for its subsidiary in
Amsterdam. Worldwide, it says it pays out over 30% of its profits in
tax. Many other firms are making extensive use of havens. A study
published last year by ActionAid, an activist charity, said 98 of the
firms in the FTSE 100 index have at least one subsidiary in a haven.
An increasingly popular strategy is to transfer ownership of the
multinational’s main intellectual property to a subsidiary in a tax
haven, then charge other subsidiaries in higher-tax countries for use
of it. Data compiled by the OECD, a rich-country think-tank, highlight
how many patents are owned by outfits in such unlikely innovation hubs
as Barbados, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. In both Britain and
America, businesses have been lobbying for cuts in marginal
corporate-tax rates, even if this meant losing a few small loopholes,
and had started to get somewhere. Their arguments were bolstered by a
study in June from the Centre for Business Taxation at Oxford
University, which found that the two countries had among the world’s
highest effective tax rates (ie, after allowances). Barack Obama,
having failed in 2011 with an attempt to cut America’s headline tax
rates while eliminating some exemptions, has made a similar proposal
as a carrot to the Republicans in the “fiscal cliff” talks.
I wasn't aware of the tax avoidance situation with Starbucks, but it's likely that there are many large corporations using these same tactics. I believe the tax situation was what prompted Burger King to move its head office from the U.S. to Canada, and there are lots of corporations that have "head offices" in Grand Cayman.
I tend to only patronize Starbucks occasionally simply because I'm not a big fan of their "full city roast" coffee. We have several Starbucks outlets here, but I prefer one of our smaller local shops, as I really like their coffee. When travelling (especially in Italy), I prefer the small local Bars or whatever, so even if there were Starbucks there I likely wouldn't use them.
While Starbuck's may or may not be holdings back on the tax collector, they are throwing a few more penny's to the farmers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelsey-timmerman/drinking-fair-trade-coffee_b_4646960.html
Starbucks reports that 90 percent of their coffee is ethically sourced
through their C.A.F.E. Practices program and three percent from
third-party certifiers such as Fairtrade International.
Starbucks are also being criticized over another recent issue......
There are no Starbucks here in Israel. They tried opening some a few years ago, but Israelis - who LOVE coffee - didn't like Starbucks and after a year or two, they closed up shop.
As a Swiss I can say that it is mainly the expat community that frequent Starbucks on a regular basis. The typical Swiss customer probably visits two or three times a year as a novelty treat, something like that.
In Malaysia, people call them Suckbucks or Starsucks as they are known for very poor light coffee as the franchisee owner of the brand is known for poor business ethics. They are popular in Malaysia because they can afford all good locations. I am not sure of their coffee quality in Europe but in China and Thailand, I can easily find better quality coffee cafes like Pacific Coffee, Costa Coffee and Black Canyon Coffee.
I am glad I don't recall seeing them during my last visit to Spain and Italy and they are not the biggest in Korea, the country known for the most cafes. Japanese cafes all serve poor quality coffee, so the green mermaid is a standout.
