Quittintime: Psst...wanna hear a joke??

Here's Jackie Mason's take on Starbucks. You can just hear his
voice...........

You want coffee in a coffee shop, that's 60 cents. But at Starbucks, if
it's Cafe Latte: $3.50. Cafe Creamier: $4.50. Caffe Suisse: $9.50. For
each French word, another four dollars. Why does a little cream in
coffee make it worth $3.50?

Go into any coffee shop; they'll give you all the cream you want until
you're blue in the face. Forty-million people are walking around in
coffee shops with jars of cream: "Here's all the cream you want!" And
it's still 60 cents. You know why? Because it's called "coffee."

You want cinnamon in your coffee? Ask for cinnamon in a coffee shop;
they'll give you all the cinnamon you want. Do they ask you for more
money because it's cinnamon? It's the same price for cinnamon in your
coffee as for coffee without cinnamon - 60 cents, that's it.

But not in Starbucks. Over there, it's Cinnamonnier - $9.50. You want a
refill in a regular coffee shop, they'll give you all the refills you
want until you drop dead. You can come in when you're 27 and keep
drinking coffee until you're
98. And they'll start begging you: "Here, you want more coffee, you want
more, you want more?"

Do you know that you can't get a refill at Starbucks? A refill is a
dollar fifty. Two refills, $4.50. Three refills, $19.50 So, for four
cups of coffee - $35.00. And it's burnt coffee. It's burnt coffee at
Starbucks, let's be honest about it.

If you get burnt coffee in a coffee shop, you call a cop. You say, "It's
the bottom of the pot. I don't drink from the bottom of the pot. But
when it's burnt at Starbucks, they say, "Oh, it's a blend. It's a
special bean from Argentina....." The bean is in your head.

And there're no chairs in those Starbucks. Instead, they have these high
stools. You ever see these stools? You haven't been on a chair that high
since you were two. Seventy-three year old Jews are climbing and
climbing to get to the top of the chair. And when they get to the top,
they can't even drink the coffee because there's 12 people around one
little table, and everybody's saying, "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,
excuse me....." Then they can't get off the chair. Old Jews are begging
Gentiles, "Mister, could you get me off this?"

Do you remember what a cafeteria was? In poor neighborhoods all over
this country, they went to a cafeteria because there were no waiters and
no service. And so poor people could save money on a tip. Cafeterias
didn't have regular tables or chairs either. They gave coffee to you in
a cardboard cup. So because of that you paid less for the coffee. You
got less, so you paid less.

It's all the same at Starbucks - no chairs, no service, a cardboard cup
for your coffee - except in Starbucks, the less you get, the more it
costs. By the time they give you nothing, it's worth four times as much!

Am I exaggerating? Did you ever try to buy a cookie in Starbucks? Buy a
cookie in a regular coffee shop. You can tear down a building with that
cookie. And the whole cookie is 60 cents. At Starbucks, you're going to
have to hire a detective to find that cookie, and it's $9.50. And you
can't put butter on it because they want extra. Do you know that if you
buy a bagel, you pay extra for cream cheese in Starbucks?

Cream cheese, another 60 Cents. A knife to put it on, 32 cents. If it
reaches the bagel, 48 cents. That bagel costs you $312.

And they don't give you the butter or the cream cheese. They don't give
it to you. They tell you where it is. "Oh, you want butter? It's over
there. Cream cheese? Over here. Sugar? Sugar is here." Now you become
your own waiter. You walk around with a tray. "I'll take the cookie.
Where's the butter? The butter's here. Where's the cream cheese? The
cream cheese is there."

You walked around for an hour and a half selecting items, and then the
guy at the cash register has a glass in front of him that says "Tips."

You're waiting on tables for an hour, and you owe him money? Then
there's a sign that says please clean it up when you're finished. They
don't give you a waiter or a busboy. Now you've become the janitor. Now
you have to start cleaning up the place. Old Jews are walking around
cleaning up Starbucks. "Oh, he's got dirt too? Wait, I'll clean this
up." They clean up the place for an hour and a half.

If I said to you, "I have a great idea for a business. I'll open a whole
new type of a coffee shop. A whole new type. Instead of 60 cents for
coffee I'll charge $2.50, $3.50, $4.50, and $5.50. Not only that, I'll
have no tables, no chairs, no water, no busboy, and you'll clean it up
for 20 minutes after you're finished." Would you say to me, "That's the
greatest idea for a business I ever heard! We can open a chain of these
all over the world!" No, you would put me right into a sanitarium.

Starbucks can only get away with it because they have French titles for
everything, bastard sons-of-a-bitches. And I say this with the highest
respect, because I don't like to talk about people...

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