Is this trend generally true of large brands, or is it specific to the Starbucks brand? Starbucks was somewhat a victim of their own success, in that their rapid, headline-making expansion gave their brand shades of "corporate drone" and "cookie-cutter" and suchlike in the popular culture. In the current economic climate it's not surprising that people would reject large brands in favor of local producers, but I would expect that to be a more industry-specific tokenism that a general consumer shift.
On the other hand, if the non-branded stores aren't succeeding either, maybe the coffee's just bad.
That would be my guess, too, assuming that customers can't otherwise tell the difference between real non-Starbucks stores and the fake non-Starbucks stores. A Consumer Reports taste test in 2007 placed Starbucks's coffee behind McDonald's, with a mixed followup review in 2009:
> Consumer Reports taste test in 2007 placed Starbucks's coffee behind McDonald's
Starbucks had consistently above average coffee at all of their stores at a time when it was hard to get above average coffee consistently. Since then, a number of places have offered good coffee - McDonalds isn't prestigious at all, but they now serve Newman's Own which is quite good. Subway serves Seattle's Best, so during busy times when the coffee isn't old and burnt, that's good. Heck, 7-11 has pretty good coffee these days. I prefer all three of those to Starbucks for plain coffee. Starbucks does make a good Americano though, and I don't drink the fancy mixed coffee drinks so much, but my fancy coffee drinking friends say Starbucks does it pretty well.
These days, it's not hard to get a cup of pretty good black coffee in a lot of different stores in the USA. Still, Starbucks is usually playing the Beatles or classical music, has a comfortable enough ambiance, and employees who are pretty happy and friendly. So I'll grab a cup of joe to run from Subway or McDonalds or 7-11, but if I'm going to sit down and read a book, I'll lean towards Starbucks. That's what they've got these days - their regular ol' coffee isn't anything special.
For the sake of everyone reading along from other parts of the country, it bears mentioning that the street containing the first non-Starbucks Starbucks ('Cryptobucks') is jam-packed with coffee shops: http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...
I'm a little perplexed by the report that the 15th Ave Coffee and Tea is doing so poorly since their store is constantly packed with people. The only thing I can imagine is that your typical Starbucks does the lion's share of its business on the strength of 'to go' orders, which the new Cryptobucks locations are expressly designed to minimize.
The coffee at the new places is definitely better than your average Starbucks, in any case. It's also better than a fair number of independent coffee shops in the same vicinity.
I think the problem is that Starbucks just had bad luck with their clientele. Seems to me coffee drinkers are more likely to value a unique experience over homogeneous reliability.
I prefer both, but it depends on where I am. I prefer one-off shops or Tully's normally; but I have to say that Starbucks provides a slightly classier version of McDonald's reliability overseas. While traveling, I could easily find a Starbucks in a new city and get a mocha which, while not the best ever, was at least consistent enough to count as a taste of home (not to mention I now have a collection of I've-been-there mugs :)).
There's a book titled "McDonaldsization" that deals with this exact theme: the selling point of McDonalds et al is the consistency and familiarity. The chapters dealing with McDonalds specifically are pretty interesting, although when it starts extending that as a metaphor for globalization, if you disagree with the premise it won't convince you of much.
Hamburgers and french fries are a good example of where this is a good quality to have, more so than most food. Coffee is less so, especially for coffee snobs, but for people who need their morning fix all that's required is caffinated liquid marginally below your gag reflex threshold, which starbucks can usually manage. But, however just because standardization works for the _coffee_ part of a coffee shop, it doesn't work for the _shop_ part of it. The idea of a "coffee shop" is much much larger than a shop that vends coffee, and that bohemian ideal is not so amenable to industrialized standardization in the same manner as burger patties.
Yeah I agree, why risk eating exotic food which you have to look up in wikipedia to know what's in them when you can eat a good'ol big mac with coke and fries!
</sarcasm>
Familiar food can be a comfort when you've been eating unfamiliar food for days. But yeah, if that's all you eat when traveling, you're doing it wrong.
On the other hand, if the non-branded stores aren't succeeding either, maybe the coffee's just bad.