Sunday, October 16, 2011

Breakfast at Starbucks

The new Starbucks next to our building finally opened a few weeks after our arrival. Of course Starbucks is a big a deal in the U.S. and especially in Seattle, where it was born, but they had only been in France since 2004 and had never made a profit. 

Sure, you'll see many tourists who want to feel at home or walk around like celebrities with big coffees in their hands, and young locals who want free wifi, but in general Parisians, with their ubiquitous cafés, look at Starbucks with contempt.

On Sunday mornings they sold pancakes, so we decided to try them. There too the baristas use name tags and customers have learned to stand in line, place their orders and find a table when their orders are ready. The pancakes weren't great, neither was their espresso, so we never went back.