Everyone everywhere can say that on any given street-corner, mall, or bookstore of their hometown they’ll find the unstoppable coffee giant Starbucks well-represented. Be it a store, a cart, or Starbucks products gracing the aisles of their supermarket, the Seattle-based franchise has expanded its reach exponentially across the United States over the last few years — so much so that the opening of any new shop in a frontier neighborhood signifies that high-priced lofts, specialty stores, and affluent urbanites are soon-in-coming.
But someone finally decided to settle the debates once and for all — which towns and cities really have the most Starbucks stores per capita? Via WTOP, we find that Epodunk.com, a site dedicated to providing detailed, geocoded information on 25,000 communities nationwide, pitted the number of Starbucks franchises against a city’s population, resulting in a “coffee quotient” listing stores per 10,000 people.
Among small cities (population 10,000-49,000), Falls Church, Va. took first place with 7.7. Starbucks stores per 10,000 people, beating out Katy, Tx. with 6.8 and Greenwood Village, Co. with 6.3. In medium-sized cities (population 50,000-99,000), Gaithersburg, Md. ranked second.
Epodunk.com may very well become the best way to judge your fit to a particular town or city — their diverse rankings include the best places if you’re 50 and gay, the most liberal towns, public school spending by state, the use of public transit, number of single men and women by county, and the cities twenty-somethings are most likely to move to. The page dedicated to the District is particularly instructive and well-researched.
Starbucks logo taken from Gizmodo.
Martin Austermuhle