Written by DCist Contributor Vince Wadhwani, of BuyIndie.net
Joe. Bean. Murk. Black Venom. Go Juice. The Nectar of Life. Call it what you want, but we love our coffee. And when you talk coffee it’s hard not to think about the ever present Starbucks. Recently, they launched a service making it even easier to get your fix. Send a text message from your cell phone and get back the location of the three closest Starbucks. Three closest? How many could there be, we wondered? Well, a quick trip over to their website reveals over 50 locations within 2 miles of Dupont Circle. With that sort of density, what chance does the independent coffee shop have? Fortunately for those of us who don’t like our coffee exceedingly bitter and our milk drinks lukewarm, Washington has a good supply of indie spots to check out.
We checked in with the owner of local coffee shop, Java House, to see where he stands on the issue of dealing with the mermaid. “I’ve always thought: you won’t walk an extra block to have a good cup of coffee, but you will walk an extra block to meet with a friend. The one thing that is very rewarding in this business is the friendships you make,” said Payam Yazdani. While the boutique coffee house along the 17th Street NW corridor offers pastries, bagels, and free wifi; it’s perhaps best known for its coffee which is roasted and brewed right inside the store. Yazdani emphasizes this aspect as another asset of independent coffee shops, “We stay relevant through the senses. People smell the coffee we roast and they want to drink it.”
But how easy is it to find an independent coffee shop, especially when Starbucks reaches out to grab you at nearly every street corner? To aid you in this quest for coffee, there are a number of websites out there that can help find and avoid chains. BuyIndie is working on improving its site, but until then our favorite service is Delocator. Simply give your zip code and click the button to get a list of places that are not Starbucks. Our search revealed 34 places to get your mudd on within two miles of Dupont; there’s opportunity aplenty to go indie if you want to.
But why all the enmity towards Starbucks? Frankly any business that gives us free coffee couldn’t be all that bad. Plus more than a few of us rely on the big S for mobile office space from time to time. Pile that on with good employee practices and you have a corporation that isn’t completely heinous. Perhaps it’s because two weeks ago Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz warned that the brand was becoming too commoditized, and pledged to refocus (though the company seems to be off to an odd start). Perhaps it’s their disrespect for the local, independent coffeehouse’s territory. Maybe it’s because their food has increased in price while decreasing in size and quality, or because they raise the price of their coffee even though their profits have increased 26 percent in the last two years. Are those good reasons? What do you think? Are you tired of seeing the green and white logo at every turn, or does it call to you like a beacon in the haze of the morning? Where do you get your daily caffeine fix?
To read the full interview with Payam Yazdani, head over to BuyIndie.net.
