I stopped at a McDonald’s just this last week on my way to my office to satisfy a random craving for one of their egg mcmuffins. I had not set foot in a McDonald’s in years and was really surprised to see how much they have changed. Aside from the very obvious fixing up of the place to make it more adult friendly with warm soft colors, there were sofas and lounge chairs, flat screen televisions with cable news running, and wifi. Free wifi, unlike Starbucks.

I didn’t think of my recent experience at a Starbucks until I read the linked story below, but a couple of weeks ago I stopped to get a grande latte and got in my car and spilled part of it out the top because it was too full. I took it back and told the barista guy that gave me a single shot of espresso, way too much milk and no foam, in other words a cup of coffee with milk and not a latte. I had my suspicions while watching him work the first time as he appeared more interested in making it fast rather than making it well, in spite of the fact that there were no other people waiting behind me at the time. I have also noticed that their baked goods are looking a little sloppy, the blueberry muffins don’t have that many blueberries in them, and then as I already stated, there is increasing variation in quality of the drinks.

Let’s face it, you don’t really go to Starbucks for quality coffee, it’s more the fact that they are consistent across the entire chain and are utterly ubiquitous in most cities. This is potentially the problem for Starbucks, many of their retail outlets are high traffic and after several years certainly look worn, and not in that funky cool kind of way that the corner cafe is either. Their merchandising efforts seem to be the primary strategy these days, it’s like running a gantlet past coffee mugs, gift bags, coffee packs, and CDs to get to the register where you reach the final obstacle, navigating through the selection of gift cards and other incidentals.

Then there is that other strategy they apparently have to broaden the waistlines of far too many people who think a Venti white chocolate frappuccino at 760 calories is a good way to start the day. I have written about this before, but I wonder how many fast food and bad-food-in-school-vending-machines critics stop at Starbucks for a caramel frappuccino on their way to the press conference where they excoriate those they believe responsible for fattening Americans.

Here’s a startling fact, according to Starbucks 80% of their revenue is generated by customers who visit a Starbucks 18 times a month or more. You could easily argue that this is an asset for Starbucks, loyal customers are less likely to be switchers, but I would argue that the risk for Starbucks is huge if a competing offering is moderately better than Starbucks, more tailored to frequent customers, located in high traffic competing locations, and then offers the extras, like free wifi.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think McDonalds is overtaking Starbucks in the specialty coffee business in my lifetime but in assessing the relative quality of both organizations I could make a point that the gap is a lot narrower than most would expect.

McDonald’s beats Starbucks in coffee smackdown – Los Angeles Times:

Consumer Reports magazine said today that in a test conducted at two locations of each emporium, its tasters found McDonald’s coffee to be “decent and moderately strong” with “no flaws.” On the other hand, the Starbucks brew “was strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open.”

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