Bryant Simon's Blog
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Jan.26.2012
Starbuck's recent annoucement that it would start serving beer and wine at stores in Atlanta and Southern California has gotten lots of press in the last week. Much of it, like much Starbucks, talk is rather tongue and cheek. "Would You Like a Lager with Your Latte?" "Starbucks...
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Oct.19.2011
This is a slightly longer version of an op-ed piece I wrote that appeared in Sunday's Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-you-want-a-stimulus-plan-with-...
Starbucks USA
Backed by loyal legions of heavily caffeinated customers and battalions of bright-eyed...
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Oct.19.2011
This is a slightly longer version of an op-ed piece I wrote that appeared in Sunday's Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-you-want-a-stimulus-plan-with-...
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Aug.10.2011
Last weekend, my oldest son played in a baseball tournament at the somewhat misnamed venue, "Sports at the Beach." A quick internet search revealed that the fields were nearly twenty miles from Rehobeth Beach. Thinking that we wanted to be closer to the games, we decided to stay in...
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Aug.02.2011
This will be short. I went to the franchise -- e.g. not company owned -- Starbucks in Margate, New Jersey with my good friend and shoobie for this week, Rudy Fuller. As we waited in line, I looked up and saw a sign behind the counter that featured a large picture of bright red coffee berries....
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May.11.2011
This blog orginally appeared at FastCompany.com
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Apr.13.2011
Reading Between Latte Lines By Bryant Simon Note this blog originally appeared at fastcomany.com
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's bestselling new memoir about bringing the coffee giant back from the brink of collapse strikes a non-partisan tone. Little of the Brooklyn-raised...
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Mar.24.2011
As insiders have long predicted, Starbucks is looking to snatch up Peet's. Obviously this is filled with irony, since Gerald Baldwin, one of Starbucks' three original founders, is the now a principle owner of Peet's.
But really this will be a bad deal for Starbucks. That's not because Peet's doesn...
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Feb.23.2011
Check out this article from Temple Times by Alexandra Oliver
In the land of Big Gulps, Super-Sizes and extra larges, Starbucks is giving birth to its own larger -than-life cup.
Come March, Starbucks will begin serving its 31-ounce cup: Trenta.
Coffee might not be the equivalent of a super...
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Feb.12.2011
This is a piece I wrote that appeared on the Berfois website:
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Starbunked: This...
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Feb.08.2011
From a recent article, here are some comments, I made on the new logo.
Bryant Simon, a Temple University professor of history and author of a book on Starbucks, argues that the company is making a mistake in taking the word coffee off its logo. Simon says the company moved away from its...
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Nov.01.2010
After watching the documentary, Food Inc. the other day, one scene stood out. It wasn't one of the film's most shocking, arresting, or appalling moments. It actually unfolded in a rather quiet setting. A Walmart dairy buyer stands just inside the fence of an organic farmer's lush green fields...
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Oct.18.2010
USA Today ran an interesting piece today on Starbucks turning forty -- on the company hitting middle-age. (Here's the link to the article, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-10-18-starbucks18_CV_...).
In the comments to article, buyers renew a long standing class warfare...
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Sep.25.2010
Check out this documentary HBO made to go with the new show Boardwalk Empire. I appear as a talking head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy178zHzLpU
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Aug.17.2010
I have blogged a couple of times already about Starbucks and its use (misuse) of language, about how it creates a sense of belonging that customer pay for, and about "resistance" to this talk.
Well, a Columbia professor really didn't want to talk Starbucks, so she got mad and railed...
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About Bryant
Bryant Simon is Professor of History at Temple University and the author, most recently, of Everything But the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks and Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America.
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