Check out the City Room article on the new Starbucks, plus mention of other great coffee places in the 'hood. I think I'm heading to El Pequeno Coffee Shop this weekend!
Here's the link:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/frothing-over-a-starbucks-in-little-colombia/index.html?ex=1364961600&en=a65b4ce832541f4f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rssAlso, notice the interesting and sad quote from Peralta. I am frankly a bit surprised that he would be quoted as saying “The community should not have to settle for less because it deserves the best." What is he suggesting? That our locally grown coffee shops are not the best? In my mind, Starbucks is fine and gives a good balance to the retail on 37th, but we should note that chains send their profits to corporate headquarters while the profit from locally owned stores stays in the community with owners who live and work here. It's called the multiplier effect. For every dollar you spend at Starbuck's, the majority of the profit gets sent away. But compare that to every dollar you spend at Letty's or Expresso 77. Those profits get respent by the owner who lives in the community, shops at local stores and eats at local restaurants. That money in turn gets spent by employees and owners of that establishment, and so on. So every dollar spent in a local store is 'multiplied' many times over every dollar spent in a national chain. I wish our politicians would work as hard to help local stores as they did to get Starbucks in the 'hood. Don't get me wrong, I am not against Starbucks being here - I just want folks to be educated about how their buying decisions affect the neighborhood.