Starbucks aims to hit the mark, well the Target anyway.

Starbucks aims to hit the mark, well the Target anyway.


I blogged the other day about Starbucks starting to serve drinks like wine and beer at their shops and how this surprised me a little, but how it made sense from a coffee shop perspective to maximize your potential income stream.


I am far more shocked by the recent news that I heard about Starbucks from a neighboring town.  I hear that they are going to open a branch in the local Target store there!  


To me this is a crazy announcement.  This is yet one more confession that they are not serious about quality.   Do not get me wrong.  I love Target.  I buy many things there and that runs from clothes to food, but high end specialty foods are not included in that list.  


If I want Mike and Ike’s I am happy to buy them at the local Target, but I always glance a bit askance at the wine section.   Perhaps they have great wines, perhaps they have great deals on wine, but it does not seem to fit.


If I want to go out for fine dining (which I do not get to do very often with two small kids), the last place I would think to go just about is Target.  


I can easily imagine McDonalds drawing up a deal with Target to have mini branches in the stores, but I cannot imagine a super high end restaurant doing the same.  Starbucks has always claimed to make elite coffee.  I do not think they are in a league with the greats, but they usually are reluctant to admit that they are more in line with fast food than with gourmet food.


Have they thrown in the towel and made a confession or do they still believe they are an elite coffee company?  When they start entering food courts they seem to be answering the question by saying yes they give up although I guess you could argue they are just trying to bring high end coffee to the masses if you bought into their coffee as high end instead of just expensive.


Then again when they opened “high end” coffee shops in Seattle that did not carry their own brand because they wanted to seem upscale I guess that answered the question, too.