Starbuckian

Starbuckian

San Francisco, Christmas vacation, 2004:

I am walking the slanting streets of San Francisco. No matter where I turn, there is always a coffee shop within my sight. Starbucks coffee, to be precise. Just how much coffee does one city need?
There is room in the market for an upscale coffee shop. But when I see them everywhere, it’s like the urban cityscape has been infested with these franchises.

Phnom Penh, September, 2005:

This logo caught my eye driving along Norodom boulevard:
Palais 02
The green circle and ornamentation looked very familiar. http://tinyurl.com/mpkf5

So I went in and had a coffee. It was passable.
Looks like someone’s paid careful attention to the coffee shops in Bangkok – you can even get a green tea frappe if you want.

Starbucksesque

The difference between this and other coffee shops of its kind? Price, much cheaper than an actual Starbucks. I expect buses to disgorge hordes of tourists in the near future. Me? I came to Cambodia for new things, not familiarity. If I visit, it’ll be sparingly. To each their own.

Along with BB World and Pizza Hot, it looks like Phnom Penh’s precession of simulated franchises will continue until consumer and corporate demand is satisfied.
I’ll leave the proper restaurant review for Phnomenon.

Palais Coffee, 50 Norodom, near Cine Lux.

Tags: ,

One Response to “Starbuckian”

  1. [...] Anne Moore gave it her best shot last night at Pannasastra University in a talk about her latest book, ‘Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity‘. At turns amusing, engaging and enraging, the presentation raised lots of questions about the decline of freedom of speech in the States and beyond, without easy answers. (Now if we can just get some copies of the actual tome to bookstores here… please? Above: a parody of the Starbucks logo.) [...]

Leave a Reply