4 ms·
Pedantic. In the 1980s there weren't many in America, now there are Starbucks'es and others throughout.
by muzz 7y ago
Pedantic. In the 1980s there weren't many in America, now there are Starbucks'es and others throughout.
- perl4ever 7y agoThey were a thing in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Maybe more of an urban or hippie thing. I know the term "coffeehouse" was a cultural touchstone in the US because it was used in titles of books published before the 80s. Sorry I don't remember specifically, but this "nothing existed until Starbucks" is ridiculous. Starbucks came out of somewhere. Coffeehouses came from Europe to the US, before and after the American revolution.
- thaumaturgy 7y agoI'm tempted to just call out the absurdity of arguing this point, but instead I'll just air-drop a factoid: if you Google "https://www.statista.com/statistics/196590/total-number-of-snack-and-coffee-shops-in-the-us-since-2002/" https://www.statista.com/statistics/196590/total-number-of-s..., you'll find a graph showing approximately 1,650 specialty coffee shops in the US in 1991, and 31,490 in 2015. I'd link directly to it but the site forces you to pay to see the graph unless you clicked on it from a Google search results page, which is bad and evil. I can't find a better source.
- perl4ever 7y agoStarbucks has something like 15,000 locations in the US, half your latter figure. They could have a million stores and it still wouldn't mean they invented coffee.
- Spooky23 7y agoThey were pretty rare. Even in NYC, a coffee shop was mostly a Greek diner. While it may reveal my Irish working class roots, I never saw espresso made or consumed outside of an ethnic Italian restaurant in Arthur Ave until I was like 17. Last week, I had a mediocre latte from a Starbucks at an I95 truck stop adjacent to a cotton field in North Carolina.
- cptaj 7y agoPedantic. The world is not America. Actually, the U.S. not America either.