Interesting piece here

No pressure to compare Jason…

Cartel also has some good reviews up on the Yelp.com profile site.

I’ve gone there and had a cappuccino a few times. I’ve found it to be a comfortable place to sit down and read. I also had a freshly baked cookie that was good. I like their prices, too ($2.25 for a cappuccino IIRC).

They don’t just roast their own coffee — they’re a roaster that has a coffee shop. Last time I was there, a prospective customer came in, looked around, and said to the employee that he was looking more for a place to work, and wound up leaving to look for a more suitable place. The employee acknowledged that the coffee shop isn’t much, but it’s because they’re primarily a roaster.

And, I don’t think it’s a bad thing for some shops to close the doors. We don’t know the real circumstances behind any closure and to speculate is probably not the best course of action. Some shop owners close or sell because of things that have little to do with whether or not the coffeehouse is making their numbers or whether it’s a hit or not.

In the case of Starbucks, this is pure business. They’re not making their numbers, things cost more now than they did in 2006 on the wholesale end, and the market can only take so many Starbucks in one city. I agree in part that they’ve gone away from their original zeitgeist from yesteryear (whatever that was…I never understood it frankly) but likely this has a lot more to do with a public company facing pressure from its stockholders to maintain a profit and keep the stock price where it should be.

Um. I never said someone should support a shop simply because it is local.

People should support a coffeehouse because they like it (which ought to obviously imply they have something of value to offer) and if it is local then all the better. In fact, the second to the last point I made in my blog post was all about people finding a shop that they like and really getting to know the owners who run it. Do that first, then brag.

However, it should be said that local small businesses are the heart and soul of this country–and that’s no less true for the coffee business as it is for virtually any industry. When you support local small businesses, you support your community and you help yourself and others prosper.

In contrast, when you support multinational or public corporations you get just about what you pay for and little else if that. The money isn’t normally pumped back into the local economy in too many other ways besides minimal wages for the employees that work there. Profit goes into the pockets of stockholders, senior executives, and pension funds. Suppliers, if they are used locally at all, are often unnecessarily pressured to lower prices when a big corporation comes to town resulting in further lower margins that pass on less and less to the community in terms of the profit of businesses supplying the big chains. Meanwhile, the local business owner still gets the non-bulk pricing from the same suppliers and less attention because suppliers pay attention to their more valuable customers.

Oh, it is true that some multinational corporations inject some help into the local economy and community but when you put it into perspective and realize on a percentage basis that it really doesn’t amount to much more than a token effort compared to what the could do if they really wanted to–who wants to support that?

And, I have to stick up for my fellow coffeehouse owners here–unlike the corporate folks that set up new shops here and there and go home at 5pm every afternoon to another life–these owners have put their entire lives into their shops and have usually sacrificed incredibly even before the doors open. And, it’s never a nine to five job. They are constantly working to provide the best for their customers in a market that isn’t easy to survive in let alone thrive like the bigger businesses in the industry.

As far as I’m concerned, these local independent coffeehouse owners are the heroes of specialty coffee. Sure, you can run through a five car deep drive-thru at Starbucks and get a taste of something that might resemble specialty coffee on its best day in just about the same way you can go to McDonald’s for a Big Mac, but the real stuff is to be had in the independent coffeehouses here in Phoenix and elsewhere.

but i totally recommend vietnamese coffee, i go to Cyclo and Saigon Pho, both in the Chandler area.

I have to agree with his point: once you find a good shop, brag brag brag.

Local shops have several advantages over chains - they can adjust to local demands, buy a better or more suitable equipment piece (non super autos, anyone?), and spend money on other local companies.

But they’d better offer a bit more than just being local.