Gawker
Denver Post columnist Al Lewis is on a crusade. A cranky Starbucks crusade! "How 'bout a slice of lemon to go with that $2.10 iced tea?" he asks, rhetorically. Because there is no lemon! Other places, they give you lemons. But fancy-schmancy Starbucks? No lemons. Don't blame Al Lewis. He's written (multiple) columns! He's sent his concerns all the way up the chain to the CEO! And now he knows why Starbucks' stock has lost half its value in a year: because they can't get Al Lewis a freakin' slice of lemon:
I wrote a column about this glaring deficit in the "Starbucks Experience" in 2004. Back then, nobody seemed to care about any negative publicity that might be associated with not offering lemons. But now that Starbucks is slipping, maybe they will listen.In the past year, Starbucks stock has slid from $32 a share to $16.34 on Monday. Last week, it reported a 28 percent fall in quarterly profit.
Chief executive Howard Schultz is blaming the economy.
Ha, right. Lewis eventually gets Starbucks' executive vice president for global strategy on the phone. But she fails to see the light:
"In my world of new products and operations . . . believe it or not, bringing fresh lemons into our stores is a challenge," she said. "Because it's fresh fruit. How do you cut them? It's a big ordeal."How about those little packets of concentrated lemon juice? I asked. Maybe put them on the condiment counter beside the sugar and the chocolate powder?
"That's prime real estate over there," Gass explained. "And we haven't really seen a big groundswell of requests for this."
Starbucks: you just lost $2.10.
[via Starbucks Gossip]
Comments
God, that's the most refreshing freaking pic I've ever seen. That's like refreshment porn. Jeebus.
Al "Grandpa" Lewis was always the crankiest Munster, but when he doesn't get his lemon...whoa.
@CodePink: I know! It's so tart and seedless, just dripping with lemony goodness.
When does Andy Rooney weigh in on this hot topic? I'm waiting.
How about a slice of lemon to go with my pumpkin frappuchino macchioto, Starbucks? We don't all go along with the little grated chocolate on top of the Cool Whip. We are individuals!
I just want to say, though: Lemons are now $1.00 each. Serious.
Lemons are not cheap and even if Starbucks did provide lemons, they would totally have to charge extra for each lemon slice in order to make that choice viable.
In which case dude would still complain because "back in his day" lemons were free. Yeah, and back then coffee was only $0.35 cents but here's your dumb ass rolling up in Starbucks looking for iced tea Venti for $4 when down the block at the bodega you could totally get a cheap Lipton and a cup of ice and call it One so don't be That Guy being a Complainy McPainey trying to sue folks or start a proxy war because of your supposed "convenience" and "pride".
(sorry for the rant. I really love to make lemonade from scratch and it hurts my soul that in order to do so it would be like $10 for 4 glasses. So Holy Shit.)
My oatmeal is too hot! And this bed has that polyfil in it -- what happened to good old horsehair mattresses? I know the Super 8 is "economy" lodging, but would it kill them to put some air freshener in here?
To: Starbucks Executive VP for Global Strategy
From: lawyergay
Re: How to Cut Lemons
1. Grasp a knife with a "handshake" grip in your dominant hand, holding the lemon in the other.
2. Placing the blade perpendicular to the fruit, make repeated downward sawing motions until the lemon has been divided into two roughly equal halves.
3. Insert knife in eye.
@lawyergay:
4. Squeeze lemon juice into wound.
Al Lewis, you are my new hero...
It's because they don't have a "fresh foods" license. They cannot give out fresh fruit/veg that is not packaged (like the apples in the cheese plates.) Truth!
First The Munsters, then being Fidel Castro's fanboy, and now this.
Al Lewis is one cranky old man.
Well, I for one am still jealous of people in LA because they get free refills on ice tea. That's it. I don't envy anything else about the town. (Ok...maybe the Chateau Marmont.)
So Starbucks doesn't have access to refrigeration or Rubbermaid storage containers? That's so sad for them.
The lack of lemon is just part of their passive-aggressive approach to serving tea-drinkers. If you don't really want to do it, then just stick to the burned coffee and stop selling the mildewy tea already, okay, Starbucks?
so i guess we can forget about the orange wedge with the cappuccinos.
In my day, donuts could float. - Abe Simpson (or Al Lewis?)
The lack of lemons really does bug the hell out of me.
@Pepperoncina: "It's because they don't have a "fresh foods" license."
So this is why their assorted fruit cup is inedible, yes? I once made the mistake of purchasing one before a long train ride, I figured all GCS food-court stuff was essentially created equal. I was wrong.
I hope some entrepreneurial little tyke sets up a lemon/lemonade stand outside a Starbucks and starts bilking tea drinkers out of hundreds of dollars a week. Unfortunately, Starbucks will then franchise the lemon stands, annex them to all stores, and the chain of moral depravity will continue.
@CodePink: In the next shot the lemon's getting mounted by a kumquat.
Is not having a "fresh foods" license their excuse for the baked goods they serve?
This is like the time I read that letter to the editor from the old man who was upset that people don't wear hats anymore.
I'm so with Al Lewis on this. It irks me that a so-called "customer-centric" company like Starbucks, and Peets, will not provide lemons for customers who want them. Ice tea without lemon is like a day without sunshine. Peets has the attitude that lemon would sully its Golden Child-like tea. Leave that to us, assholes, and get some fucking lemons already. I'll slice the bitches.
@The Real JR: I can't believe I forgot the last step.
@The Real JR: Um are things that bad in the States? In Spain, I can't say exactly what lemons cost (because I buy what I need with my eyes closed) but good god, $1 each? Is that just Manhattan bodega prices? Starbucks provides 3 kinds of milk, cinnamon, etc. and no lemons? Come on, you can get a dozen decent slices out of one lemon. Maybe they should start offering decent teas, straight plain black tea (HOT TEA!), with real boiled water...it's not that hard. If they can figure out a way to make those crap super calorie Frapo-Crapo-Mochacchinos...please? My passport is US, but my DNA is 100% Irish. Tea, please!
Chipotle has lemons and ... OMG limes too! Cmon Starbucks, figure it out.
@SarahHeartburn: Guess the Supergoddess ran us out of lemons. OMG! No more lemon squares *sobbing*
@The Real JR: holy crap! $1 for a lemon? Lemons are 8 for a dollar in my neighborhood.
How bout some regular goddamned sugar? That raw shit is awful and the rest of the sweeteners will kill you. Oh yea and so will the burnt bottom of the oven shmegma coffee I choked on this morning.
@famousauthor: No, I think that's the fault of the "No Saturated Fat" BS. I blame Mama Bloomberg, clearly one of those women on a permanent diet who passed her food phobias on to her kid, who's now ruined it for people who don't even live in NYC. Sorry, I'm still bitter that their scones are now as palatable as spackle.
@Freegan: I don't mind the raw stuff for hot drinks, but it is crap for anything iced as it never dissolves. But as the condiment area is such valuable real estate I guess we should be grateful they give us a non-chemical choice.
You know what? Starbucks used to have lemons, and it had some of the best loose tea in the world. I'm talking ten years ago or more.
AND NOBODY EVER ORDERED IT!
We threw out four fucking dollars worth of lemons every two days.
@The Real JR: My cousin has an amazing olde tyme lemonade recipe from her husband's granny that requires Tartaric Acid. And now I want to try yours, too!
Up next: Who Does Andrea Peyser Have To Blow To Get Some Fresh Ground Nutmeg Up In This Bitch, For God's Sake?!!?
"Starbucks refuses to explain the lack of delicious spices, but I figured it out: Islam!"
@Ryan Tate: Get to work!! I can't comment on posts that aren't there yet. Quantum physics be damned!
and now we go to ollie williams to report on the lemon crisis at starbucks...
AINT NO LEMONS
thanks ollie
[ybpguide.com]
@famousauthor: mmmmm, pumpkin frappacino...lovely
@Zorica: I have been fooled by that assorted fruit cup more times than I can say. I buy it, retch, wait a month, figure it will be better, buy it again, retch again. Homer Simpson would be proud of me.
@Pepperoncina: Why don't they get one? Some world-controlling global politicization-of-coffee company they are. If the nice Indian immigrant outside my building can sell fresh fruit, why can't Starbucks slice a couple of lemons? I agree, it's an atrocity.
Thats because they put a hint lemon in all their ****ing baked goods. Gross.
@The Real JR:
When Life hands out lemons ...
[A pause ensued, during which Life's accountant disclosed the current cost of lemons.]
When Life hands out potatoes ...
make vichyssoise.
What do you do when life DOESN'T give you lemons?
@HiredGoons:
Good question.
You bitch-slap life hard. And repeatedly.
@CodePink: That is like God's lemon.
And this jerk wanting it with his tea should have it rammed up his ass. Get a life, don't go to freakin' Starbucks.
You know what's really gross about Starbucks? All their freakin' pastries are FROZEN. They thaw them out the night before supposedly, though it is alleged. But I could never figure out why they tasted like crap.
1. lemons
2. ???
3. profit
@Shariahpants:
those cold injuns just loved a pumpkin frappachino
Yellow is so un-seattle duh.
That picture caused the sides of my tongue to feel all strange, as if I was about to suck one. (lemon that is).
Man, Starbucks is falling hard. I didn't know their stock dropped damn near 50 percent. Screw lemons, they need to focus on advertisements. Dunkin Donuts had the funny "fritalian" commercial last year --maybe they can hire their advertisement agency.
+ Watch video
I'm trying to figure out why this guy insists on buying iced tea in Starbucks. I mean, I can understand how there's no such thing as iced tea in NYC, and so I have to keep a pitcher of it in my fridge, but he lives in Denver. Starbucks iced tea always tastes like it was strained through the pores in a gym locker room, and I'm sure there's something growing in it that ain't mermaids.
I get the feeling that Al Lewis has nothing better to do with himself than to bore his forehead with a power drill for several years and write about it.
@Freegan: haha shmegma - that made my day. i will take a $1.50 triple xl coffee from donut delite over that starbucks crap any day.
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