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North End to Starbucks: Make like an egg and beat it
By adamg on Fri, 06/29/2018 - 10:47am
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on a community meeting last night on the proposed Cross Street building that would include a Starbucks (and posts video of the entire meeting, should you enjoy nearly three hours of tenseness and anger).
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Comments
There is a glut of open apts n the North End and North Station
This is from one of the comments. I wouldn't be surprised if it is true, but I am interested in knowing if there is any evidence of this. There seems to be a huge supply in the area of builds were you need at least $36,000 a year to rent.
They act like Starbucks
They act like Starbucks slapped their mother but don't care at all about the Citizens Bank in the same building or the Peets Coffee or 7/11 down the street. There is no consistency to their outrage. They are like the crazy Pawnee citizens from Parks and Rec.
Maybe if Starbucks hadn't
Maybe if Starbucks hadn't been trying to appropriate Italian culture since its inception they wouldn't be such a lightning rod for criticism in Little Italy. Walk into a cafe in Italy and see how far you get trying to order a Venti Frappucino and report back to us.
you are kidding right? the
you are kidding right? the north end makes a mockery of italian culture every single night...here comes another shipment from sysco...and little nicky varano has a new billboard.... what a joke.
Waves of Italian people who
Waves of Italian people who had once lived in the North End are crying wolf now.
So many Italian families have sold their buildings for millions and had left the North End during the 1980s and 1990s but the smart Italians held on to their properties and now their buildings are being rented out to young educated professionals, the young educated professionals are now the dominant force of the North End, they are the people who make rent payments to the owners who probably live in the North shore leafy suburbs of Boston . The young urban professionals want a starbucks End of story !!!
The Gino’s ,Giuseppe’s , Guido’s, the Maria’s , Gina’s , the Tony’s etc. they all want to keep the North End old world and authentic. They can’t always have their cake and eat it,wake up it’s 2018!!
Does anybody want this??
Other than Starbucks of course?? There's a Starbucks 500 flippin' yards away at Faneuil Hall. Walk there if you desperately want Starbucks so bad. Clearly the neighborhood & it's business owners (residents too from what I understand) don't want a huge corp. moving in & hurting the local cafes.
Yeah But
The hypocrisy lies in the multitude of other corporate stores already in the North End for years and years, there even was a Dunkin Donuts on Salem Street at one point (in the former European building).
And that many of those protesting business owners themselves are running corporations.
Granted I can sympathize with their desire to have no Starbucks there, but not for their reason. They fear competition while I fear burnt tasting, over roasted coffee. I would rather have Coffee Connection back, but barring that, even the Dunkin Donuts back would be better than Starbucks and their silly, fake sizes.
And like many commenters here, I have to bring up Nick Varano and hundreds of drunk Suffolk students, who have already ruined the North End such that there is probably nothing left to salvage.
Coffee Connection
I'd like to get a large cup at the Coffee Connection, go over to the Harvard Square theatre to see a Marx Brothers triple bill with dinner at the Wursthaus afterwards.
You had me until...
...the aptly named Wursthaus / Worst House. Their food was never as impressive their lineup of German beers. Let's just have a drink there and then go to Elsie's.
The Brattle in Harvard square
The Brattle in Harvard square doors Marx brothers marathons and George Howelll, who founded the coffee connection, has a coffee shop in downtown crossing. So two out of three are still available to you!
Are we debating the right question?
I keep seeing the issue framed as "who wants this?", which is really a question for Starbucks itself. If someone has the money to open a very legal establishment, the question ought to be "On what grounds can we deny them a permit?" And I haven't seen a persuasive argument yet. It looks to me like a bunch of business owners campaigning to keep their monopolies going and prices high by keeping out a lower priced competitor.