OPINION: Starbucks – is it a threat or an opportunity for Mount Shasta?
Submitted by Jeff Butzlaff, Mount Shasta
My wife Mary and I are faithful, longtime and forever customers of Suzzanne Mendenhall’s Coffee Brake. This letter intends to convey that things may not be what they initially seem, and provide encouragement to her, her many fellow supporters, and our other unique coffee houses, in an alternative, broader vision of what the added presence of Starbucks could mean. While it may seem counterintuitive, I posit the following factors of an economic dynamic in such as small, quaint, largely tourist based community as Mount Shasta, ideally located both where heaven and earth meet, and right along Interstate 5.
Starbucks in Mount Shasta: Coffee joint owner hopes petition will keep it away
Mount Shasta Herald
The owner of a drive-thru coffee joint in Mount Shasta is hoping an online petition that’s garnered more than 1,000 signatures will keep Starbucks from coming to town.
Suzzanne Mendenhall opened The Coffee Brake in the Rite Aid parking lot 20 years ago. Starbucks is eyeing the dilapidated KFC/Taco Bell building, which is almost directly across W. Lake Street from the Coffee Brake.
“Multinational corporations have no place in our rural town – where the residents depend and rely on locally owned businesses,” said Amber Nelson, who created the petition for Mendenhall last week. “The opening of a Starbucks in Mount Shasta opens the door to further undue development. Mount Shasta will lose its essence, making it hardly distinguishable from a chaotic and bustling commercial city.”