In the wake of the Seattle Starbucks that has reinvented itself as “non-Starbucks,” it seems that something is in the works for the ‘Bux on the corner of Mariposa and Bryant…the location will shutter for a “remodel” this Saturday, and reopen as a new environmentally-green version on August 8th. — Eater SF
If there’s one thing San Franciscans do not like it’s being tricked. In San Francisco there’s none of this fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me bullshit. Like Chuck Norris, a San Franciscan only gets fooled once before they are forced to write an unfavorable Yelp! review.
But Starbucks doesn’t do anthropological research, and so they are attempting to fool San Franciscans twice by once again choosing the Starbucks at the corner of Mariposa and Bryant as the location to try out their new not-Starbucks Starbucks, which is a Starbucks, except that it looks like a coffee shop that might not be a Starbucks, but is one. Some San Franciscans may think this sounds familiar and that’s because it is. In 1999 the same location was used for the launch of Circadia, a Starbucks concept which revolved around purple couches and an incomprehensible name that had something do with sleep cycles.
At the new new not-Starbucks Starbucks the concept is redecoration, and the environment. There’s a table that was made entirely from a reclaimed tree that the people at Starbucks found somewhere, and you suddenly get the image of all these baristas running around the Presidio in the dark looking for a fallen eucalyptus.
At least this information finally puts to rest the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound. The answer is yes, but it’s a sound that only Starbucks baristas can hear. At Starbucks, the only prerequisite for reclaiming something is that it has to have fallen down, and now every San Franciscan should know not to get drunk around a Starbucks employee.
In fact, pretty much everything in the new Starbucks is reclaimed. Even the idea of making the new Starbucks look more like a coffee shop that is not Starbucks has been reclaimed from the independent coffee shops that Starbucks drove out of business. Some people say that monopolies are bad, but do those people even realize how many earths Starbucks has saved by reclaiming other people’s ideas?
One important step in the reclaiming process is to get rid of all the stuff you already have. This may seem like a waste, but a lot of things aren’t what they seem, and you won’t find out why until you get to heaven. This is why the new Starbucks had to throw out all of the nice soft couches that were not made out of reclaimed squirrels and trees and replace them with hard metal chairs that are made from the bicycles that Starbucks employees “reclaim” on the side.
