Starbucks’ CEO is out. Chipotle’s Brian Niccol is taking over

Support local independent coffee shops.

Thank you!

Anti union parasites get no profits from anyone with half a brain!

And you get the added benefit of not overpaying for shitty burnt coffee.

For Mexican food, try your local mexican Doña or Don.

I agree with all those points except the serving size one. I remember reading recently that the CEO was upset about some locations skimping after people complained and sent corpos out to retrain them.

As someone who also only drinks black coffee I agree. Their signature taste is literally burnt because of the way they roast their beans. It's terrible.

Yes, true of most any national/international chain.

It's because they value large volume, year round availability, and high consistency from their beans and roasts, so that no matter what location you go to it tastes exactly the same.

To do that, they select and blend several bland varieties of coffee bean, put them through an aggressive industrial cleaning and drying (which reduces the natural fruity and funky flavors but minimizes costs) then roast them in huge batches to several steps past where a normal roaster would stop for a given roast (a darker roast gets rid of more of the unique flavors of the coffee cherry and brings out more uniform roast flavors instead).

Again, not something exclusive to Starbucks at all, and plenty of small coffee shops don't bother with the hassle and just buy cheap bulk coffee pre-roasted by large scale operations and will have similar results.

But man, when you get coffee made in small batches, with natural processing or even fermentation and gently roasted... It's an entirely different experience.

McDonald's has better tasting coffee than Starbucks since they swiped Tim Horton's vendor a few years ago.

Their coffee in the U.S. is the worst too IMO, aside from the occasional awful gas station coffee and I wouldn't be shocked if they were buying Starbucks roast since they also sell it in bags in supermarkets. But, of course, it's like McDonald's- no matter where you go, you know what it will taste like. So people rely on it.

I avoid it as much as I possibly can (it doesn't help that I used to work on a show in L.A. that was partially sponsored by Starbucks and it was that or our other sponsor, Red Bull, if I wanted caffeine while working). The only times I go when I'm not traveling and have to make a caffeine pit stop and there are no other options is when all the other local coffee places are already closed since they all close earlier than Starbucks and I want to sit somewhere not at home to do something.

Other than that, I always go local. And here, a lot of the local places have drive-throughs, so even that convenience Starbucks offers is unnecessary. They're usually cheaper than Starbucks too. And, of course, better coffee.

In the US, it is mediocre. I wouldn't say it is terrible and if I am in a different city that lacks local shops, I'll get it. But it is definitely not my first or even 10th choice. And no, the light and medium blends do taste burnt like everyone and their mother thinks it is cool to say. Those people are almost certainly getting dark roast.

Luckily I live in Seattle and have no issue finding good roasters and cafés that are not anti union.

I agree completely. Black coffee drinker here and Dunkin is the best.

That already happens at busy locations

Chorizo is serious business.

Meanwhile, what they serve at Chipotle is not worth even half of what they charge for it.

And if you make cold brew in advance, it's saves a lot of time in the morning. It's even good heated up in the microwave, but I drink it iced year round.

But if I brew my own coffee at home, how will people know I'm writing a screenplay?

I'm now hoping he looks like a Wish Mr. Bean.

Just make coffee at home before you leave. 10 minutes versus however long the coffee shop trip costs in time and money. Even faster if you get a basic coffeemaker that has a clock that can be set to start up automatically.

Coffee shops are overpriced for the mediocrity.

Why don't you give those cards away to homeless people or food banks? They could use it

It's strange how the Internet turned on Chipolte. When they were first expanding, everyone raved about how great they were. Then there's a few very public food safety issues, which certainly doesn't put them in a good light. They didn't make any particular changes to their recipes AFAIK due to that. If you thought they were tasty before, then that opinion should be the same now even if you avoid them due to untrustworthy food safety.

I dunno; the Mexican fried rice they use tends to sit heavy in my stomach, so I avoid them, anyway.