Longtime lbotp readers will recall my scary obsession with Starbucks — when was it coming to town? Where? How many? It was the 2004-5 version of blog pet Trader Joe’s, with one major difference. The quest for Starbucks wasn’t so much about getting good coffee — there are plenty of other places to procure that here — but just the symbolism of it that mattered. With a Starbucks here, this was actually a real place.
Our good friends from Seattle descended upon Champaign with gusto, opening three locations in just about a year. But somehow, they never crossed Wright Street. That will all change very soon, as Starbucks has discovered Urbana. As Deb Pressey reported on Sunday, the company is building a store at the corner of Main and Vine (the corner where the Schnucks strip mall sits). It sits within walking distance of an overflowing source of potential regulars with a lot of disposable income (the mafia of lawyers that dwell downtown) as well as in a high-trafficked corner — seemingly a fool-proof recipe for success.
That said, I can’t believe this will happen without at least one Urbana resident objecting.
15 responses so far ↓
gamera // January 24, 2007 at 3:09 am
*sigh*
I gotta an idea—how about instead of giving $750,000 for a County Market at the old Burnham site, we give Trader Joe’s a call….
Maladjusted // January 24, 2007 at 8:41 am
While it may do okay feeding off of the folks in Urbana’s government offices and the Carle folk in Lincoln Square, I have seen so many things come and go from that strip mall that I almost believe anything going in there is doomed to failure. Time will well I guess.
prairie biker // January 24, 2007 at 12:10 pm
There is an excellent coffee shop there now right next to Cinema Gallery. It’s also closer to the courthouse and most lawyers’ offices.
paul // January 24, 2007 at 2:58 pm
starbuck must go nuclear-free first
Andy // January 24, 2007 at 5:46 pm
If you want a Trader Joe’s so bad, click on this link and tell them so!
http://www.traderjoes.com/location_requests_form.aspx
Maybe they are reluctnat to open one here because they don’t think it’s the right target market. If enough of us show demand for a TJs, maybe they will listen.
Miss E // January 24, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Please don’t be offended if I’m less than overwhelmed at the prospect of another corporate coffeeshop in town. It’s only going to hurt our (most awesome) independents.
lbotp // January 25, 2007 at 12:45 am
Miss E — I understand your point but I think you missed mine. I think Starbucks will succeed in that location because there really is not much competition in that area for coffee shops (insert your own commentary on the city of Urbana’s business culture here). Correct me if I’m wrong but the only true coffeeshops in Urbana are on campus. Yes, they serve coffee at Mirabelle and Strawberry Fields but that’s hardly why people go there. Oh, I almost forgot about the new Cafe Paradiso at the Urbana Free Library, but again, people are there because they are going to check out library materials or whatever they do there.
Andy — We’ve been down that road before but it never hurts to try and try again! Thanks.
Matt // January 25, 2007 at 7:59 am
“… I almost forgot about the new Cafe Paradiso at the Urbana Free Library…”
Which closed a month or so ago. The UFL is currently looking for a new coffee shop proprietor to open up there.
Miss E // January 25, 2007 at 9:14 am
I was told that the Paradiso in the library closed because it was losing money. The *other* Paradiso, however, is still in Urbana.
You’re right - Urbana doesn’t have anything equivalent to Cafe Kopi or Aroma or the now-closed Verde. The owners of Pekara at one point had looked into opening a coffeeshop in Urbana, but that fell through. I know of a couple of other people who have considered/inquired about opening shops there, but with no luck.
I guess a distinction just needs to be made as to the PURPOSE of yet another coffeeshop in town - if it’s just to *get* coffee, there’s Strawberry Fields, Mirabelle, and Art Mart, all of whom serve great coffee and are just as easy to get in-and-out of as Kopi or Aroma is in the mornings. If you’re looking for a place to sit down and have a cup of coffee while studying or with friends, Courier has decent coffee (and free refills), Strawberry Fields was full of students the last time I was there, and the couple of Campustown coffeeshops in Urbana are not that inaccessible (although that light by Paradiso? necessary but annoying).
I’m from Rockford, and when Starbucks came in there, it was welcomed. There were a handful of very spread out cafes with good coffee, but none of them had a drive-through, for example. In a city of 150,000 people, I think there were, like, 5 coffeeshops, with lots of other little diners and gas stations and places to get a lousy cup of coffee. Here we have SEVEN Espresso Royales, plus Kopi, Aroma, Paradiso, Green Street/Bar Giuliani, as well as however many Starbuckses they see fit to plant.
I guess if it were my coffee dollar, I would be encouraging the expansion of a place like Mirabelle - or asking if downtown Urbana can sustain a -real- coffeeshop if the library’s efforts have failed.
Lisa Morgan // January 25, 2007 at 9:37 am
Regarding TJ’s: I heard somewhere that they go only to towns with populations of 250,000 minimum. I’m not sure if that’s correct, but if so it’s certainly why we’ve lost out. Although if you count the population of the “outlying” areas as well as the twin cities…
mate'man // January 25, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Just did my bit for getting TJ’s to C-U:
Here’s their reply!
Aloha and thank you for your interest in our stores. Emails have been flooding in with suggestions for new store locations in neighborhoods all over the U.S. We love that!
Rest assured, every email is read and your recommendation will be passed along to our real estate folks.
The best place to find new info concerning which neighborhoods we’ll be in next is the Trader Joe’s Locations page http://www.traderjoes.com/imap/advantagecallback.asp?template=map_search
We hope to see you soon!
Mahalo (thanks)
******************************************************************************
This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or company to whom they are addressed. If you received this e-mail in error, please notify the originator of the message.
Trader Joes TJCLD Tag - 13
Milwaukee Brad // January 25, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Ok, I have to share something because it is way cool. I just got a new job at a new building with about 1600 other employees. On each floor, they have a coffee bar with free coffee from one of those machines that dispense a crappie coffee derivative (think highway rest stop…
On Monday, our coffee machine was broken, so my boss let in on a dirty little secret. There is a Starbucks automatic machine on the next floor up (the executive floor) in the mailroom.
The coffee is pretty good and since it is free, I like it even better.
File under: Life is so good, I gotta wear shades…
Brad
lbotp // January 26, 2007 at 8:57 am
Miss E — I forgot last time to welcome you to lbotp! That’s a bummer about the short-lived library Paradiso (we’re Champaign library users as it is more convenient for us). But I don’t think that it closing indicates that downtown Urbana can’t sustain a coffee shop… the library is/was a niche market. And as for the Urbana Campustown shops, you’re right, they’re not that inaccessible … but there’s a huge market of people in this town who avoid Campustown at all costs!! Hope to see you around here more often and thanks for the lively conversation.
Brad — I didn’t know Milwaukee was so cool.
Mateman — Do they sell Mate at Trader Joe’s?
Mate'man // January 27, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Si’, there’s bagged mate’ tea in TJ’s copious caffeine department …… but don’t be fooled — it’s nothing like preparing a traditional gourd-full and sipping it thru a bombilla …
starbuckssuperfan // January 30, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I never understood why people got so riled about about having Starbucks in Shampoo-Banana in the first place. The only argument I would hear was “What about our great local places? A chain would hurt them.” Make way for capitalism!!
Besides, Espresso Royale is a chain–there’s a shitton of them here and the coffee there tastes like dirt.
No one believed me when I said it was a chain until I took a picture of the one on Newbury Street in Boston, MA.
http://www.espressoroyale.com/locations.php
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