more buzz with your starbucks

photo from seattlepi.com

Did you see this? Starbucks, in its ever-elusive quest to combat falling sales, is taking over a neighborhood coffee shop in Seattle and turning it into a non-Starbucks named wine/beer/live music/poetry corner café. That's right ... if your usual double shot of espresso isn't giving you the chemical fix you need, maybe a microbrew will. And if this experiment goes well in Seattle, Starbucks says they'll take the show on the road, expanding to cities nation-wide.

But the java execs worry that calling these liquor-serving locales "Starbucks" will confuse the masses; so they're going local instead, letting the neighborhoods dictate the stores' names--like 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in Seattle (not everyone is giddy over the move).

So this story got me to thinking: What would be some good local names for a new coffee shop around these parts? The Steaming [College] Station? B/CS Bean Town? The Hangover and the Cure? University Ugly Mug? Eh. Those all pretty much suck.

Capitalism. I'm all for it. And any place that serves chardonnay alongside a skinny caramel latte (on ice) is a damn good thing.