Starbucks on Franklin Ave?

That is getting to my long-winded point:

Opening up in Western CH has become so expensive (and therefore risky) that newbies aren't attempting it.

I'm arguing that such decisions are wise, because I see the competition only growing.

Epiclylaterd said:

The question is, when can you break the news?

October 16

I have been given permission to reveal the news, but not the source:

After being outbid over a year ago for the space presently occupied by Centanii, Starbucks is now in "final negotiations" with the landlord who owns the space formerly occupied by Climax: 775 Franklin Avenue.

The rumor that started this thread was correct, but I was sworn to secrecy for over a year.

Oh man, this is gonna open up some good debate.

I see the people who visit Starbucks and the people who visit establishments like Little Zelda's/Breuklen Coffee to be of different breeds. So I feel like those that support those places aren't headed to the Starbucks band wagon and their business will continue. Am I wrong? Do these shops have something to fear?

Also, HOW MUCH COFFEE DOES ONE AVENUE NEED.

Also centanni outbid Starbucks? WOW!

I predict that not all of the existing coffee places are going to survive in their present form; they are going to have to adapt to survive in some other form.

Epiclayterd, I'll say it plainly anyone who drinks Starbucks coffee is a lazy corporate tool who likes paying out the nose for a sub par product.

I'm sick at just the thought of Starbucks on Franklin! and completely agree with Fonzie on this matter. oh I mean NewGuy88.

Wow. Starbucks for me is a last option if there are no alternatives around including bodegas. Not only does their coffe taste over roasted, but they seem to sell a lot of drinks with whip cream on them. These have never appealed to me as I have no interest in dessert disguised as coffee.

I probably will never step foot in here even though I'm a regular customer of both Bruekelen and Zelda, Lula Bagel, and bodegas in between.

As a non-coffee drinker, I won't get much use out of the new Starbucks either.

However, I suspect that a lot of the existing coffee shops were built under the premise that they would loose money for a while and then profit as "non-resident foot traffic" continued to increase in the neighborhood.

My sense is that people visiting a neighborhood will stick to the familiar (I.E. Starbucks), but that residents will patronize their favorite local places.

Starbucks will likely do fine on "just" the former group.

The question is, "Will the small places do fine with just the business from the residents?"

No starbucks is terrible! What next? Olive Garden? Another Appleby's. So that those non-native visitors dont have to actually sample something they dont know? God Forbid they try something new or actually different! Move in the giant chain Drugstores.

I mean its all better than that tobacco/head shop near Barbancino's. What a god awful step backward that is. Was there any dicusssion about that mess? did I miss it? I'm all for venting and spewing... It all starts to remind me of St. marks place in the east village. That was kinda of groovey for awhile (I'm older) and now its just the pits. Do they have a strbucks there too? It would seem appropriate. Oh yeah right its the gateway coffe place at astor place. Dont we deserve a few years of quaintness and inventiveness??? God I was just in Hullabaloo tonite and thought to myself " How great" and now this. We are all going to Die!!

Vote with your dollar billz ya'll. The Gilded Crack Baby mural pawn shop went out of biz because of lack of funding, period. Boycott Starbucks if you believe it is a subpar overpriced product or you are anti-stripmallification of Franklin and it will go bye-bye too.

I don't normally buy coffee, but all the annoying whining on this thread has me itching to buy a Starbucks card.

Don't like it? Don't shop there, but get off your freaking high horses about those who do.

The comparison to the pawn shop I find especially specious and ironic. The pawn shop was criticized for attracting a criminal element and dragging the neighborhood towards the "bad old days." Starbucks, arguably, constitutes a move in the opposite direction.

I guess anything that diverges from a specific, narrow vision of what the neighborhood should be like is tough for some people to swallow.

Like Chairman Mao said, let a hundred flowers blossom. But like Deng Xiao-Ping, I don't care what color a cat is, so long as it catches mice.

I am amazed that people think they have an influence over a business if "they" do not patronize it, and that a business is supposed to serve their preferences.

As long as a business serves the preferences of ENOUGH people who have the means to pay for it, it will do fine.

A business doesn't have to serve everyone. It can serve very small subsets and do fine.

By serving a defined a market segment, it is only directly competing with those also serving said segment. I'll worry about this Starbucks going out of business when a SECOND coffee chain opens.

I really liked the pawn shop mural.

The pawn shop mural was a genius piece of advertising. It communicated to me that I could sell my worldly possessions and make my baby rich and happy.

Sadly, I didn't have kids, and couldn't get over the brainwashing I received when I was a kid: Having a college education and a work ethic is the best bet.

I'm with Eastbloc, I suspect those that patronize Starbucks will be predominantly people who have been brainwashed, like me.

There will, however, be one big difference between them and myself: They will go to Starbucks because they like coffee, whereas I won't go because I do not drink coffee.

This is just another business that has decided to place its interests above mine.

Such is life. I wish them the best.

Some of the comments are laughable. I welcome a Starbucks. Plenty of others I'm sure will as well, and maybe weed out some of the subpar options out there. The super-cool-hipsters will still be able to sit on the sidewalk at Little Zelda with a macbook in lap while reading Proust to show others their superiority.

There are great coffee places in the hood, and this will be one of them (treat employees well, solid consistent coffee/snacks, clean good space).

Quote of the day:

goldemi wrote: The super-cool-hipsters will still be able to sit on the sidewalk at Little Zelda with a macbook in lap while reading Proust to show others their superiority.

One thing about Starbucks is that everyone knows you can go in there and hang out for hours without the staff hassling you to leave. I think this place will be full of grad student types nursing one cup of coffee and studying for hours.

Yet it still won't beat the Dunkin Donuts on Nostrand which is open 24 hours a day. Coffee House Deathwatch just got real!!!

Thank god we've got a starbucks. I was wondering if there'd ever be a place on Franklin where I could get a cup of coffee.

I was expecting to see a Chase Bank ATM vestibule on Franklin way before a Starbucks arrival. I wonder if Chase will be next or a Rite Aid?

The caffienated borg has saturated Manhattan, we are next:

http://gothamist.com/2013/10/17/interactive_map_here_are_all_the_st.php

Lily and Fig makes a good portion of its revenue from making cakes but, if I were them, I'd still be concerned about having a Starbucks nearby.

photo: Franklin Ave Merchants Assn

At Starbucks, you can reliably get a brownie or cookie.

" At Starbucks, you can reliably get a brownie or cookie. "

Yep, and soon you will be able to randomly pick any train, get off in any town/hood, visit their main street, and get the same exact cookie or brownie, that will taste exactly the same, while you listen to the same exact music piped in. If diversity is the spice of life then Franklin will be joining the bland ranks with this addition.

Pete Seeger has been predicting this for 50 years.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwUp-D_VV0

Related reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boxes

I just noticed this today, but there is a Starbucks awning at Atlantic Center mall. I think that's new and it's across the street from the already existing Starbucks at Barclays Center. They're taking over

They do have a number of locations in Brooklyn. Among them are two near Brooklyn College, and one in Park Slope (at Park Place and Flatbush).

http://www.starbucks.com/store-locator

There's another in Park Slope: inside the Barnes & Noble on 7th Avenue.

Someday, Pete Seeger will be right.

Ditto, Thomas Robert Malthus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

Until then, I guess we can choose whether or not to go to Starbucks.

I'd be shocked if Starbucks takes that much of the out-of-neighborhood foot traffic-- if you're travelling to Franklin, you're coming to visit twee businesses and resto-bars, not national chains. Likewise, the tastes of people working in a "creative incubator", or whatever 1000 Dean is, are likely to tend toward indie coffee.

Epiclylaterd, the Starbucks at Atlantic Center Mall has been there for years and years. It's one of the smaller stores nearest to the LIRR entrance next to the cookie shop.