Starbucks has had a disastrous start to the year - with tens of millions of customers heading instead to rivals or staying at home.
Tim Horton's, McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts have all taken market share from Starbucks across hot and cold drinks, and food.
The company this week reported a fall in sales for the first time in nearly three years, which was at the height of the pandemic. It was only in November it reported record takings.
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While I've never had nor wanted one, Lisa enjoys her gay coffee drinks from Starbucks, insisting on getting one every time we go to Gallatin where the nearest Starbucks is located.
Naturally it's in a spot that's a royal pain in the ass to get into or leave due to traffic, and to add insult to injury, they take forfuckingever to make it. I'm serious, there's always a few cars in front of us, so we can figure on at least a 20 to 30 minute wait. It may be a shorter time if I was to park and go inside to get it, but I absolutely refuse to step inside due to liberal germs. It's bad enough a liberal company was getting our money.
Then one day as I'm driving around the town square here in town, I noticed a locally owned shop called SheBrews had opened up. I decided that what Lisa doesn't know won't hurt me, otherwise she'd have me stop off every single time I went to town to get her one.
Then one day she was with me and as we drove past she said she smelled roasted coffee beans. "Huh, that's weird," I said as I continued to motor right on past that sucker. Fuck. Remember, Lisa's nearly blind but she can still smell.
A month or two later, one of her friends from when she lived here before came by for her semi-annual visit and she had a gay coffee drink in her hand, telling Lisa she bought it at SheBrews there on the town square and they were much better than Starbucks. Scarlett, you bitch.....
Anyways, it's a once, maybe twice a week stop for me now and because they don't have a drive-thru, I have to go in. The first couple times, there was maybe a 10 minute wait, but as soon as they started recognizing me, that got cut down to about as long as it takes to finish the one they're working on and then they start Lisa's - 5 minutes, tops. And because Lisa always wants the same one, I don't even have to order. I walk in and whoever's working automatically starts making it without even asking what I want.
Not only that, but they're all friendly as hell to the point that if I see the owner or baristas anywhere else in town, they'll walk over and start shooting the shit with me.
Scarlett must've been right as far as them being better than Starbucks because last time we were in Gallatin I started to turn in and Lisa told me to keep going, she prefers SheBrews. That's a win all the way around because she got a better gay coffee, I didn't have to wait in line for a half hour, Starbucks didn't get our money and we supported a local business.
