Cafe Customers, Owners & Union Reps give cautious reaction to starbucks potential opening in Ireland

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday June 17, 2003 16:34 by Indymedia Kevin - 1 of IMC Eire

Photos to accompany this hopefully uploaded soon.

Cafe owners, coffee drinkers, unions cautious about possible opening of starbucks

A report in the Sunday Business Post on April 29th stated that the starbucks chain of coffee shops intended on opening up several outlets in Ireland. I took a dictaphone out to some independent cafes in Dublin and asked people what they thought about the potential arrival of this cocoa behemoth.

First stop on the trip was Cafe Irie in Temple Bar. Irie is sandwiched (no pun intended) between Se Si Progressive and the Sacred Art Tattoo Studio on Fownes Street in Temple Bar. It's been around for a good few years at this stage, and is definitely one of the older establishments in an always-changing district. I talked to Neil, the floor manager on duty at the time.

"I dont think that they'll have a major impact on places like us. But they'll probably do very well on somewhere like Grafton Street. Their takeaway coffee is very successful. Their name exists already, the brand is very well marketed."

Charlotte from Donnybrook was sitting in Cornucopia on Wicklow Street, a vegetarian cafe that promotes healthy and organic food. She echoed Neil's thoughts about starbucks potentially being successful here. "A lot of places in Ireland aren't that much different from starbucks, like Rio. People would recognise the name from their holidays, and tourists would go in there as well. Yes, I know they're big and corporate, but people do like them."

Tom from Inchicore was having coffee with his girlfriend in Cafe Irie. He felt that if starbucks opened here then they'd probably arrive with a bang not with a whimper. "In other cities they dont just open one outlet, they open ten all at the same time, and jump into the market with as much force as possible." Those of you who've read 'No Logo' will be familiar with their strategy of dropping "clusters" into urban areas already heavy with cafes.

Neil thought that several existing chain outlets like Bendini & Shaw's or O'Briens were more likely than independent cafes to buy into the starbucks franchise. "But when starbucks do open up, they do put a lot of pressure on the smaller local places that stay open near them."

Simon's Place is the wonderful cafe at the end of the Georges Street Arcade. Possibly my favourite place in Dublin, with a great location, excellent food, affordable prices, and friendly, gorgeous staff! Simon, the manager, echoed Neil's thoughts on certain existing chains being snapped up. "Dublin has seen a huge growth in takeaway coffee places in the last few years, and to be honest I'm not 100% sure how well all of them are doing. I think there are certain places - and I'm not naming any names here - that were set up with the intention of being bought out by starbucks at some future point. That's how they'll make their money."

Simon admitted to being a little shocked by the Sunday Business Post article. "Yes I am, starbucks definitely have a reputation of moving in and knocking the smaller cafes off our perch. But I am not too worried about the prospect. I've been in this business for 20 years at this stage, and there's more to it than meets the eye. I'm not sure they'd damage us. Our customers I think are different people. This place is almost like a pub with no booze. There's a personal touch that starbucks doesn't operate."

Would starbucks be successful? "Well, are McDonalds successful here? Yes. But I think it's up to the Irish people themselves. They vote with their feet and their wallets. They generally get what they want. People seem to want this trend of big drinking factories, and in the last few years they've sprang up all over the place. So yes starbucks probably would be successful here."

Personally I think that the arrival of starbucks would be yet another dent in Dublin's individuality. Having spent a brief period of time in Seattle, supposedly the coffee house capital of the world; I was dismayed to walk around and find every sixth building a starbucks, and virtually all of the independent cafes swallowed up by the chain. Simon felt that this is the way things head in a capitalist society. "It's not just starbucks. It's a lot of companies. If you go through any town in England now, you dont really know where you are, because they all look the exact same."

Kieran Connolly is a SIPTU Official who looks after Cafe & Restaurant workers. Given starbucks' general antipathy towards unions and worker organisation, I asked him how SIPTU would feel about a company like starbucks setting up their operation in Ireland.

"I haven't read the report from the Sunday Business Post that you mentioned, and I'm not familiar with starbucks and their employee relations, but obviously we in SIPTU wouldnt welcome that approach from any company. Unfortunately in Ireland, due to the nature of the work primarily, the union membership among cafe workers tends to be very low. In some of the more upmarket outlets where people are working for longer periods of time, union rates tend to go up. In most Cafes however, its students or perhaps summer foreign workers, who generally dont tend towards union membership.

"That's not to say that there aren't any cafe workers in SIPTU. There would be many individuals and also clusters of cafe workers around the country. We also deal with a considerable amount of complaints from non-union workers. They come to us when they feel they've been treated unfairly or exploited. This happens on a regular basis as unfortunately cafe workers are often asked to work excessive hours, given lower rates of pay, and not given holiday entitlements."

Organic and Fair Trade coffee groups in the United States (where starbucks is huge) have been lobbying the coffee giant to change its business practices. Ronnie Cummins, the national director of the Organic Consumers Association, said in March 2003 that "despite repeated pledges, starbucks is still loading up its coffee drinks with rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) tainted milk, and buying coffee and chocolate produced under exploitative labour conditions, and in the case of cocoa plantations in Africa, workers who are actually slaves."