Publication Date: Wednesday Jul 5, 2000 Our Town: Bucking Starbucks By Marc Igler Down along Middlefield Road's "Midtown" region of south Palo Alto, a sort of coffee house detente has been in effect for several years. Between Colorado Avenue and Charleston Road, three small cafes--Palo Alto Cafe at Midtown, La Creme de Cafe at Loma Verde, and Cafe Sofia at Charleston--peacefully coexist. Each has staked out its own sphere of influence. Each has a steady clientele of regulars. Each keep the fancy drinks to a minimum--iced mochas are about as elaborate as they get. They know their strength: a good, simple cup of coffee. It's a nice little trifecta we've got going. Personally, I don't play favorites. I patronize all three--Palo Alto Cafe if I'm looking for a soft couch to sit on, La Creme de Cafe if I want to sip outdoors, and Cafe Sofia for what I personally consider to be the best cup of the three. Now, however, there's a new player on the scene. In mid-June, the 800-pound gorilla of the java jungle--Starbucks--came thrashing through the underbrush into this tranquil little patch of meadow. Starbucks' arrival was no secret. For the past year or so, everybody knew the chain was taking over the old Midtown Realty building at Colorado and Middlefield. A lot of locals were none too happy about it, either. They successfully lobbied, for example, to prevent Starbucks from having outdoor seating, saying it would give the corner a messy look. But it's really only been since early June that the heavies out of Seattle began moving in with military precision. In about two weeks, the cookie-cutter landscaping went in. A handsome, a rough-wood overhang rose up from the sidewalk. The forest-green trim was applied, and finally, the logo we've all grown to know so well went up on the wall with the brazenness of a cattle brand. The inside is exactly as expected: earthen tones and rich smells. The menu boasts all those made-up names--ventis and macchiatos. Little racks hold cute cookies and neat little packages of candies. And then there are all those nifty, moderne products you'd never think to find in a place selling coffee--the clocks, the letter openers, the umbrellas. The big question, however, is who's going to go to this Starbucks? Not too many, judging from it's first week of operation. Sometimes there were more people working the counter than sitting in the seats. Indeed, the reception here in Midtown seems far less welcoming than the one last year at the new Starbucks at College Avenue and El Camino, just across the street from Stanford's Escondido Village housing complex. That's not to say things won't pick up at Midtown. Yet from a sampling of people I've spoken with over the past week, the king of the java jungle may be in for tough fight. "I just really dropped in to try it out," said Dan Barnes, who lives about four blocks away. "I usually go to the place over there," he adds, motioning toward Palo Alto Cafe. Dan is like most of the people I've spoken with. He's just testing the new Starbucks. He doesn't think Starbucks' coffee is anything special. And, most tellingly, he already has a regular place he likes and probably won't give up. The same goes for Kathy Newton, who works at a business park about a mile away. "Just really checking it out," she said dismissively one day while heading back to work after lunch. "It seems kind of loud in here." Newton said she usually goes to Cafe Sofia. What it all seems to add up to is that the coffee drinkers along Middlefield are not only unimpressed, but a little peeved. The locals view Starbucks as a bit of a buttinski in a market that's already spoken for and well-served. Whether that market can be expanded is Starbuck's challenge. At least in the short term, Starbucks is going to have to feed off the clientele at the existing three places. That's not good news, particularly for Palo Alto Cafe just a couple hundred yards away. You could argue that this is the sort of situation where Starbucks thrives--it has a national reputation for aggressively targeting neighborhood coffeehouses and luring customers away until the the local places shut down. But only a few of the people I spoke with came to the new Starbucks because they thought the coffee was better. Many, in fact, just wanted to see what the overhauled building looks like on the inside. They didn't buy a thing. Could it be that Starbucks, whose presence makes competitors shake like a bad caffeine jag, has met its match in the entrenched Midtown marketplace of Palo Alto? Marc Igler, a Palo Alto writer, is a former associate editor of the Weekly.