When he wants to squeeze a crater of coffee, Bill Decker has some-more than dual dozen options within a integrate blocks of his workplace during Cargas in downtown Lancaster.
They embody coffee-focused shops like Passenger Coffee and Aura Espresso Room; bakeries such as Scratch Bakes, La Dolce Vita and Bakehouse on King; and restaurants with grab-and-go drinks that embody Prince Street Cafe, Downtown Deli and McDonald’s.
In addition, coffee-to-go is sole during dual stands during Lancaster Central Market and businesses in that a categorical products are popcorn, ice cream, bagels or succulent cookie dough.
While he has attempted many places for coffee, Decker, a 30-year-old program primer author from East Petersburg, pronounced there’s one mark he avoids: Starbucks.
Even yet his bureau during 101 N. Queen St. is in a same building as a coffee giant’s new Lancaster city location, Decker pronounced he won’t step feet inside.
“I make it a indicate of observant we exclude to go to that Starbucks,” Decker said. “Starbucks is good for what it is, though we can’t move myself to go there when I’m in downtown when there are so many other internal options that are honestly only improved peculiarity coffee.”
Concerns overblown?
When a Seattle-based Starbucks sequence announced skeleton final year to open a emporium in downtown Lancaster, a news elicited flurries of amicable media greeting decrying a probable impact on internal shops. Some endangered residents even met with city officials to try to stop Starbucks.
Now, it looks like those fears competence have been overblown, according to a owners of several eccentric downtown coffee shops.
In a some-more than 3 months given Starbucks opened, business like Decker have safeguarded a other shops from a durability disastrous affect, even as their owners acknowledge a coffee giant’s distance and potency advantages.
“Starbucks also has code awareness,” pronounced Kyle Sollenberger, an owners of Passenger Coffee Roasters and Prince Street Cafe. “It’s easy for someone who doesn’t know all of a good coffee shops to only default instead of perplexing something new.”
Banking on loyalty
Aura Espresso Room owners George Zagas watched with dismay final tumble as a new Starbucks took figure during a dilemma of North Queen and East Orange streets.
From his tiny coffee emporium during 44 N. Queen St., Zagas has a approach perspective of a primary dilemma mark Starbucks chose for a Lancaster store, that debuted in late October.
“When they initial non-stop — a initial integrate weeks to a month — we saw a business dropping, and that’s when we got stressed, meditative maybe it’s time for me to do something different,” he said.
But after that brief downturn, he pronounced sales rebounded as his unchanging business returned.
Now, Zagas pronounced his business is indeed improved than before Starbucks opened. And he’s assured adequate in a fast interest of locally owned coffee shops in downtown Lancaster that he’s creation skeleton to open Alexander Coffee Bar by early subsequent month during Tellus360.
“Starbucks is a outrageous name, though we consider people wish something better,” he said. “If we give people that … they’re going to come no matter what, even if Starbucks is literally subsequent to you.”
Another emporium owners within steer of Starbucks pronounced a Seattle coffee hulk hasn’t poached their customers, either.
“We have not seen a outcome of Starbucks in regards to a unchanging and unequivocally constant internal throng who are as ardent as we are about ancillary local,” pronounced Kathleen Smucker, an owners of Cafe One Eight during 18 W. Orange St.
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Not astounded by coexistence
The ability of locally owned coffee shops to profitably coexist with Starbucks doesn’t warn Jared Scott, ubiquitous manager of Quench, a Philadelphia-based promotion group that works with food and libation companies.
Scott pronounced he has seen independent-owned shops in Philadelphia flower even when Starbucks opens right subsequent door. Scott, who has clients in Lancaster and mostly visits his son during Franklin Marshall College, pronounced he thinks a identical energetic will play out here.
“I don’t suppose that a participation of Starbucks (in Lancaster), or unequivocally anywhere in a strong village that is now ancillary a far-reaching accumulation of coffee shops … is going to put anybody out of business,” he said.
Coffee enlargement continues
In downtown, Starbucks sits geographically in a center of a coffee stage that continues to expand.
In a past month, dual new shops featuring coffee — Scratch Bakes during 11 W. Chestnut St. and Pop Perk during 136 N. Prince St. — debuted within dual blocks of Starbucks. And in a entrance month, dual some-more are approaching to open: New Holland Coffee Co. during 29 E. King St. and Zagas’ Alexander Coffee Bar during 24 E. King St.
Jason Will, who helped his wife, Laura, open Scratch Bakes, pronounced that he was tender by how fast Starbucks built a new cafeteria though that he isn’t dissuaded by being a neighbor.
“People buy coffee formed off of their possess personal tastes in coffee,” he said. “And there are people who unequivocally like Starbucks coffee, so those folks are going to buy that coffee either it’s here or (at a Shoppes during Belmont).”
Likewise, Mark Fisher, who is opening a New Holland Coffee Co. King travel plcae subsequent month, pronounced he’s not uneasy about being so tighten to a Starbucks.
“We are not worried. The people that come into internal coffee shops are there to be partial of a community, not a chain,” he said.
Artist Liz Hess, who non-stop Pop Perk nearby her Lancaster city gallery, likens a stream thoroughness of coffee shops to a cluster of art galleries that became a pull in Lancaster.
“I only feel a some-more coffee shops we have, a better. It’s a destination,” she said.
But Jerry Keys, who sealed his downtown coffee shop, Cross Keys Coffee Teas, a year before Starbucks opened, pronounced a city could be tighten to oversaturation with coffee shops. Keys, who pronounced a tentative attainment of Starbucks was not a cause in his preference to close, cautions that it’s not as easy as it competence demeanour to be successful.
“The coming of success and a grade of success are dual opposite things,” he said.
Starbucks ‘thrilled’ to be here
Starbucks, that declined to plead a Lancaster store sales or make a manager available, was upbeat about a launch in downtown Lancaster.
“We have been anxious to yield a new place of entertainment for a village of Lancaster given opening this plcae final fall,” a Starbucks orator pronounced about a grill during 101 N. Queen.
In another pointer of a plenitude of coffee shops, it’s now required to mention that downtown Lancaster Starbucks we mean.
That’s since shortly after Starbucks non-stop during Queen and Orange streets, a second Starbucks non-stop a retard divided inside a Lancaster Marriott during Penn Square.