Why you shouldn't visit Starbucks when you come to Queenstown

Why you shouldn't visit Starbucks when you come to Queenstown

yonder-lattes.jpg

It's a real shame that Starbucks was allowed to set up shop in Queenstown. If that isn't a hint as to the bias of this article, I'll make it even clearer... If you actually do love Starbucks you should probably stop reading now. Or maybe step outside your comfort zone and keep reading, it might change your life, or at the very least it will hopefully encourage you to think twice before visiting the big green monster. It actually amazes me that there are people in Starbucks when I walk past - I just went outside the Active office, down around the corner to the 'local' Starbucks to check, just to make sure they are actually real people inside. The only semi-plausible reason I can imagine for them being in there is the free WiFi (come on Queenstown, let's get free WiFi in the CBD, then no one will go to Starbucks!)

OK, so let me set the scene a little...

Every year Phil and I travel to America to visit Active alumni, it's a blast. It really is a fantastic adventure, where we're able to explore a small part of our guest's backyards and make sure we have our 'finger on the pulse', so to speak. We go out with our alumni on local hikes, we hold evening presentations and sometimes we opt for a good old fashioned dinner and catch up. We cherish these experiences and we believe that a bit of face to face time can really help to forge long lasting friendships. We both have a knack for spotting the local establishments and we'll often go out of our way to try and experience a place the way the locals would. We'll opt for trains and busses over taxis, and local restaurants over chains. One thing we both struggle with though, is leaving behind our beloved flat white coffees. This is where it gets embarrassing. On our recent Roadshow we got sucked into the Starbucks vortex. The vortex that destroys small business and stands for everything we stand against. We needed free WiFi and we needed our double espresso, and once we found out how to order something that was marginally acceptable (a 'double shot, short latte') we were sucked in and spat out with bladders full of milk, on a daily basis. Yes, it's true, we're coffee snobs here in New Zealand, I mean over-the-top, delusional coffee snobs. Hell, we're even sceptical about coffee when we're in Italy. That's to say it's truly a sorry state to find ourselves satisfying our coffee craving at Starbucks. At the risk of generalising, you could sum up American coffee culture as 'big is better'. What Starbucks did was facilitate the transition from bottomless filter coffee to 'tastes like milk', 'I'll take a grande please'. To be fair, bottomless filter coffee wasn't a great option in the first place, but at least it came hand in hand with a quirky, locally owned diner. It's hard to find those diners these days... Capitalism and the 'Walmart Effect' eh. The good news is, in New Zealand YOU STILL HAVE OPTIONS. We made a terrible mistake when we allowed Starbucks to come to Queenstown, but I'm determined to do my part here and encourage you to get your daily caffeine fix anywhere but Starbucks.

The benefits to you are numerous:

  • You'll get a better coffee
  • Your coffee won't be full of whipped cream or fake syrup
  • You're more likely to be surrounded by locals, not tourists
  • You'll be supporting a local business

Here are our Queenstown cafe recommendations:

Yonder


Joe's Garage

(Image courtesy of experiencequeenstown.com)


HALO Forbidden Bite Restaurant

(Image courtesy of wishurhere.wordpress.com)


Bespoke Kitchen

(Image courtesy of bethandarcher.com)


Bob's Weigh

(Image courtesy of flickr.com)

That’s just a small selection. Next year on our Roadshow I vow to not visit a single Starbucks. Take on my challenge and don’t visit Starbucks when you come to Queenstown.

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