Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Houston Chronicle]

The Sugar Creek Baptist Church in Sugar Land is opening a new Starbucks with a unique twist.

The coffee shop, part of the church’s new Family Center, will be located inside — next to the worship area and adjacent to a large, two-story play center. Patrons can sip lattes and surf the web with free Wi-Fi while their children shoot down slides and tumble through the padded obstacle course. A bookstore will provide Christian reading materials, gifts, apparel, movies and music.

With a grand opening scheduled for Sept. 7, this may be Fort Bend County’s first not-for-profit Starbucks. I guess when the Lord sees fit to close one Starbucks another is opened.

Bobby Chandler, director of communications, said the idea for the center came in 2006 when the church saw it would need to expand the child center.

“We wanted a family center not just for children but for adults and gatherings as well,” he said.

Read more here.

[From me]

Interesting concept.  Man, some of the comments on the Chronicle article weren’t very approving.  It doesn’t sound like they are trying to make a profit, just to reach people for Christ.  But people will find anything to complain about.

What do you think?

[From Starbucks Closure]

Sad day indeed:

[From me]

Now is it a coincidence that four stores are closing in Mobile, AL after I moved from there?  I don’t think so.

What do you think? 

[Market Watch]

Starbucks said it will close 100 underperforming U.S. stores, or roughly 1% of its current coffee shops, by the end of September. It also cut the pace of new store openings by 425 outlets for fiscal 2008. Starbucks currently operates more than 11,160 U.S. stores.

“By reducing the number of openings, we expect to optimize our resources and potentially reduce cannibalization of our existing stores,” founder and CEO Howard Schultz said.

McDonald’s has moved onto Starbucks’ turf in the past year, selling new coffee, undercutting Starbucks on price, and installing coffee baristas. Recently, Starbucks started testing $1 coffee and free refills at a few of its locations in Seattle.

Read about it here.

[From me]

This will reduce the number of Starbucks to 2 less per state. Now, I do like the $1 coffee and free refills!

I would also add the following:

• Free wi-fi
• Frequent visit cards (for free specialty drinks)
• Frequent bean cards (get a free pound of coffee for every 5 you buy)

What do you think?

[From Slate]

American economist Caitlin Knowles Myers. She, with her students as research assistants, staked out eight coffee shops (PDF) in the Boston area and watched how long it took men and women to be served. Her conclusion: Men get their coffee 20 seconds earlier than do women. (There is also evidence that blacks wait longer than whites, the young wait longer than the old, and the ugly wait longer than the beautiful. But these effects are statistically not as persuasive.)

Perhaps, says the skeptic, this is because women order froufrou drinks? Up to a point. The researchers found that men are more likely to order simpler drinks. Yet comparing fancy-drink-ordering men with fancy-drink-ordering women, the longer wait for women remained.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I would tend to agree with this. At least at the Starbucks I go to the employees treat me great. When we lived in Mobile I hardly ever paid for coffee and got most of their mess-ups. When we moved about 5 of the ladies gave me a going away party. They gave me mugs, candies and about 10 bags of coffee. Last May when we came back from New Orleans from a mission trip we stopped at a new Starbucks in Mobile. I had been away for a year and a half and when I walked in one of my employee friends yelled, “Kevin! We’ve missed you!”

What has been your experience at coffee shops?

Last night we went to Edgewater and had supper with them.  It was great to see Joe Kennedy and Jason Sampler again.  Jason is now married and made some crack about my spiky hair but at least I have hair!

By divine appointment there were two bartista’s from Starbucks who were in attendance last night and they told us where one has been reopened closer to the church than going to Kenner.  So we hung out there a while and there was an outdoor festival across the street.  Above Jack is trying his first Venti Mocha!

Today I have been busy staining and painting doors as well as mudding and taping.  Mike, Donnie Rae and Ray are putting in the door frames at the front of the church and hanging the new glass to go over the stained glass.  I can’t wait to see how good that looks.  I’m sure that will be exciting to the church members.  My son Jacob and Jack are removing concrete so they can put up a ramp.  John and Barry are working in the downstairs restroom as is evidence by the picture of Barry.

We are working hard but it is great fellowship hanging out with men who pay their own way to serve people they don’t even know.  God is amazing!