What about a Starbucks in Finland?

[conan]

Go to one of Seattle's Starbucks places. In downtown, you can smell it from the distance in the morning and it taste as good as it smells. How can one compare "all american 7/11's pot coffee" to Starbucks

[Truecanadian]

In Canada we have a coffee chain called "Second Cup" and they make good coffee and have excellent baked goods. They are not company owned but franchised by Cara Foods (Swiss Chalet, Harvey's, etc) and have a very good track record with the customers.

[Hank W.]

Well, I visited a Starbucks' just for the heck of it. Just my problem - nothing I recognized as "regular coffee" on the list. Funny stuff only. Need probably buy hot water and flip out a jar of instant grinds to get what *I* want The extra-huge latte was refreshing though. The only thing that impressed me was they had a loo. Now I'll need to go see one in the UK so I can figure out the menu and see how they've adapted to the local tastes there. Interesting hobby I have.

[Argan]

I don't want to pay 10 euros for some fancy cup of coffee.

[starbucks]

I think Starbucks would do quite well in Helsinki, although smaller places like Hyvinkaa probably wouldn't be as receptive at first. I LOVE presidentti, but I wouldn't also turn down a nice ginger bread latte. not everything american is a "monster".

[GarethKeenan]

I have to reply to this post even though it has already been beaten to a pulp. Yes I hate the globalising nature of both Starbucks and McDonalds, but in pure terms of whether a single (or even a chain of) Starbucks could survive in Finland, it is surely obvious, have you ever walked past an empty McDonalds, or a Wayne's Coffee, Roberts Coffee, Dick and Jane's Coffee and for all I know Pekka's Coffee with no one in it? I doubt it. People here will flock to these kind of places, they love them, they just can't get enough of them, this is a country where 6 euros for a pint of cider is normal, so what would they not pay for a half litre of Starbucks coffee, say in the new Kamppi centre? A Starbucks there would have been perenially full, at first just for the novelty value, but then simply because it was there. I'll bet they are kicking themselves in Seattle and cursing the names of Wayne and Robert (and Dick and Jane and Pekka). On another note, I am still waiting to have a really good cappucino somewhere in Helsinki, not that I'm suggesting Starbucks would have answered these prayers, but does anyone have a suggestion?