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This is not true. In Japan Starbucks is one of the few coffee shops chains that offer free wifi, and they only started doing that recently. Reasonable coffee is
by new299 14y ago
This is not true. In Japan Starbucks is one of the few coffee shops chains that offer free wifi, and they only started doing that recently. Reasonable coffee is relatively thin on the ground in Japan as well, Starbucks is really the only chain you can go to and know you'll get a decent coffee.
As far as I can tell they are the only coffee shops that are completely non-smoking too, which might be important to some people.
- keithpeter 14y agoGood points. In the UK, all cafes are non-smoking by law and many have wifi. I appreciate the US based nomad's desire for comfort (I once had to airmail Marmite and Typhoo tea to a friend working in Odessa) but would suggest trying some of the independents in the larger UK cities. Leaf in Liverpool and Yorks Bakery Cafe in Birmingham spring to mind.
- new299 14y agoyep, there are more decent coffee shops in the UK, even so decent independents can be hard to find. There was an interesting blog post about Yelp a while back. He talked about how Starbucks and Yelp were trying to solve the same problem in different ways. Yelp's solution was to help you find something like your favourite coffee shops when away from home. Starbucks to build the same thing everywhere. :) I'm not sure I buy it, but it's an interesting way of thinking about it.
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoStarbucks has more competition across the straight in China, but not much. They are the only chain that opens "early" at 7AM, which is important if surface traffic gets bad at 7:30. Wifi is going downhill because of the Chinese government, but they seem to be backing away from the ridiculous "use your phone to login to wifi" access points. Now if only they would give us real Chai Tea Lattes, life would be perfect.