I Can’t Believe It’s Not Onion
It’s hard to believe that a memo warning against the commoditization of the Starbucks experience from Starbucks coffee chairman Howard Schultz to CEO Jim Donald is for real, but if the Starbucks Gossip blog says its authentic then who am I to argue?
For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista.
Intimate for you maybe, Howard. That thought kind of freaks me out. Here I was still wondering why y’all bought the night vision goggles…
(Via John Gruber.)