Posted on: Saturday, January 1, 2005
Starbucks' vision of Austria growth grows fuzzy
By Sonya Yee
Los Angeles Times
VIENNA, Austria — It seemed so brash and, to many Viennese, so American when Starbucks arrived three years ago bearing Frappuccinos and caramel macchiatos into this proud capital of coffeehouse culture.
The coffee chain established its beachhead on prime real estate across from the famed Hotel Sacher and the Vienna State Opera. And this, said the management, was only the beginning. Starbucks would open a new store at least every month. By 2005, there would be 60 locations across the country.
But at the dawn of 2005, Starbucks' Austrian empire stands at just eight stores in and around Vienna. That's down from 10 — two didn't make it, including one at a high-profile spot by the Naschmarkt, Vienna's beloved central outdoor market.
The perceived travails of what one newspaper called the "U.S. paper-cup store" have inspired no small amount of "schadenfreude."
"We don't want to burst out in unrestrained coffeehouse chauvinism here," said a recent commentary in the daily Die Presse. "But a little satisfaction that not every standardized global chain can just take over the Naschmarkt is allowed."
Starbucks arguably has done little to inspire such gloating. It hasn't driven local coffeehouses out of business. It doesn't advertise and, aside from the hype of its grand opening, has turned out to be a relatively unobtrusive presence in the city.
Nevertheless, for some Vienna cafe partisans, the American chain symbolizes the insidious creep of globalization. The traditional coffeehouse, in this view, stands as a noble bulwark against the uniformity of mass culture.
"Individuality is the core argument for the coffeehouse," said Tobias Leibetseder, a patron at Cafe Jelinek in Vienna's residential 6th District. Table mate Angelika Karner said she had never been to Starbucks and wasn't planning to do so.
"It is just too American for me," she said.
Other Cafe Jelinek patrons, including an American, recoiled at the idea of a chain coffee house.
"I refuse to go to Starbucks," said Alys George, a Stanford graduate student living in Vienna. "They are so generic. They all look the same."
George can be found in Cafe Jelinek several times a week, working on her dissertation on turn-of-the-century Austrian literature.
"You can come here, and to most of the coffeehouses in Vienna, order a coffee, sit for four or five hours, read the paper, and nobody cares," she said.
Peter Aigner, who handles marketing for Starbucks in Austria, has his work cut out for him.
"It's a difficult market. It's not like in the States," he said .
Coffee-to-go gets a bad rap, Aigner says, and many Viennese persist in believing, falsely, that they will be forced to drink coffee out of a paper cup.
"They also compare it with fast-food chains, where you go in, eat quickly and leave," he said. "The typical Austrian just does not have America in mind when he thinks of coffee."
