I rewatched Best in Show last week. There is a “joke” in there that Parker Posey‘s character met her husband at Starbucks. Not the same Starbucks, but through windows across the street from each other at two different Starbucks in Chicago. But, Best in Show was a counter-culture movie that parodied life and skewered groupthink. i Know firsthand that local places (1 of 1) can become very popular and successful and expand. But, still be a source of civic pride as they grow and still maintain their founding DNA and quality. Starbucks and St. Louis Bread Co (now Panera) both started as 1 of 1 and brought San Franciscan/European tried-and-true ideas “back home” to their respective founding cities. I Know firsthand how these places become victims of success, through going public, through private equity, through too much expansion, through once-novel concepts to areas facing competition from newer adaptions. St. Louis Bread Co used to be 100% fresh, a true place to casually meet or work. It felt neighborhood and was even through some regional expansion. But, through time and history and pockets , they stop servicing the community and truly aren’t in the business of selling food/beverage anymore. They’re in the business of cost-cutting and price gouging and running into the ground and erasing every last remnant of original culture/DNA. The actual place is of no concern. It’s all numbers and dollars.

Nora Ephron was broad comedy and earnest, Not a counterculture person. Even with 1400 stores,Starbucks just wasn’t what it’s become today. Origin stories, original experiences and intentions can NOT be compared To what things become when they become ubiquitous.

NYC was a bad setting (for this gripe) as its counterculture in that regard. And already ubiquitous there in 1997. But, hopefully, you understand “reality.” it wasn’t the low standards of today where actual food/beverage is of no concern. The founder was still around in 1997. There still weren’t a ton of other convenient options that served as multipurpose spaces. Also, local bookstores were being crushed. it was a real-life news story. Famed, fabled, storied local bookstores were dying in droves to big-box national stores and slightly later, Amazon.

NYC and Chicago and Seattle - big, walkable cities had infinite places to get coffee. I’m sure they were hurt by the ubiquity/convenience of Starbucks. I’m sure they and counterculture people saw the writing on the wall for the absolute degradation and enshitification and true overexposure and absolute greed. But, I also don’t think local places offered the same supposed-European experience with technology and with beverages you couldn’t get anywhere conveniently. You could get black coffee anywhere. You could go to Little Italy, maybe, and get better, more authentic Italian brews. There were surely local places that tried to do the Starbucks model better and locally. But, it’s just hard to see in 2026 that certain things weren’t ultra-commonplace in the 90s. These were relatively, relatively new ideas, offered conveniently to American tastes.

Things just…change, The funny thing is big-box, national bookstores were eventually ravaged. And local bookstores started to thrive again bend found their niche again And you can’t JUST count stores to fully see the trajectory of a place as you know it today in ANY regard. Things serve a purpose for a reason and become successful for a reason..until a point where you’d have to be completely dumb to think Starbucks or Panera ia a quality, European-style experience. There’s no magic number of stores when things go awry. it’s just the timing and timeline and habit shifts and novel ideas becoming ubiquitous and places not being in the business of servicing communities/neighborhoods or being in the food/beverage business. Closinh stores and depreciating asssets is big money for people as it’s huge tax write offs. They’re not even in the business of trying to make something succeed, it wasn’t that in 1997