Petition to try to convince Starbucks to close the Starbucks on Centre Street in Newton Center instead of the one in the Union Street train station:

Mr. Shultz, please be advised that I will NEVER spend a dollar at the Center Street location, nor any other Starbucks for that matter. There is a Peets Coffee and Tea location in Newton Center as well, and they will be getting my daily business going forward if you proceed with this closing. ...

Via The Missus, who writes people go to Starbucks for the ambiance, not the awful coffee and stale pastry.

At least, when it comes to Starbucks outlets.

Cosmo Catalano explains why the Starbucks on Church Street in Harvard Square sucks while the one on Newbury Street in the Back Bay between Dartmouth and Exeter is just divine. It's all in the baristas they hire.

Theresa has enough of "corporate coffee" and so tries out locally owned shops in Newtonville.

In particular, wearing a gold lame sweater, stirrup pants, and ankle-high patent leather stilettos as you practice a salsa dance.

That shutdown yesterday? Starbucks used the time to introduce its workers to its new guarantee (customers who find their coffee less than perfect can return it and a barista "will make it right") and to announce it's going back to its old policy of pouring espresso into shot glasses before pouring that into the paper cups customers get.

Could somebody notify Associated Press that that's all we really needed to know, rather than the the Epic of Gilgamesh it brewed up?

Christina Mallozzy, a pharmaceutical saleswoman, looked miffed when she walked up to a Starbucks on Manhattan's Upper East Side only to find out it was closed. "I'm not furious. My life's not going to end," said Mallozzy, 25. She was, however, annoyed because she had gone to the trouble of snagging a parking space.

I suspect your reaction to Endangered Coffee's report will depend on whether you have a kid:

All in all, the incident ended badly, although it could have been much worse. I had to talk Mrs. EC from running back into the Starbucks with her dark roast and my cappuccino and dumping them on the floor. I had to convince her that there was such a crime as creating a disturbance that could have conceivably led to her, me and [Baby] EC ending up in the slammer. As it was, the incident ended with the Mrs. calling a Starbucks employee a f#@$@%! b%^&$ as we headed out the door and me lugging [Baby] EC behind her, yelling that I was going to let him piss in their cappuccino machine. ...

Latte-serving baristas at McDonald's.

The baristas think way too much.

Via Cleary Squared.

Now comes a study of Boston-area coffee shops (via MetaBoston) that concludes:

... [F]emale customers wait an average of 20 seconds longer for their orders than do male customers even when controlling for gender differences in orders.

Author Caitlin Knowles Myers, an assistant professor of economics at Middlebury College, says the wait was even more pronounced in shops with male employees - women workers were less likely to try to hold women customers up. Not only that, but the baristas seem particularly disgusted by ugly customers - they had to wait longer for their orders than the beautiful people.

Myers acknowledged in the study that women customers seemed to be more likely to order "fancy" drinks that would take more time to prepare (75% of women vs. just 55% of men; no discussion of the complexity of orders by ugly people), but said that even when this factor is taken into account, women and ugly people still had to wait longer than pretty boys (although you'd think the reverse would hold: Workers would rush their orders to get them out of their face).

She says possible reasons for the discrimination include male workers trying to get more money out of women customers (the report does not say how); male workers hating women customers (in part because of a conception that they're lousy tippers); or male workers "garnering utility" from female customers (i.e., they want to get to know them better). However, in all cases, it's discrimination against women, she writes.

The report is based on 295 observed customer interactions in visits to eight unnamed coffee shops in "the central Boston area" by a professor and five students this past January; they were selected based on whether they had seating arrangements that let the "enumerators" spy on observe workers without letting them know somebody had an eye on them. So I'm thinking Dunkin' Donuts was not included, because it'd be hard to not look out of place staring at counter workers at a Dunk's.

Should you wish to verify the results, Myers provides detailed instructions on how to properly conduct such a study: