No Winner in Vancouver Starbucks Corner War

Two-Starbucks corner | BCBusiness
Vancouver’s two-Starbucks corner was a city landmark, a perverse point of pride.

The demise of a true Vancouver landmark: bye-bye, kitty-corner Starbucks.

The long civil war is at an end. The north has defeated the south. There are no winners in this war, my friends, only longer lineups for frappuccinos and mocha half-decaf lattes, as wage slaves continue to feel the sting of the lash. But at last the confusion has ended. The people of Robson and Thurlow streets are united under a single Starbucks.

The announcement that Starbucks would close one of its two locations at the popular downtown intersection was big news when it was announced a couple of months back. With well over 200 Lower Mainland Starbucks locations still in existence – including a generous handful on Robson alone – one could be forgiven for not getting how this could be a travesty. Except that almost everybody did get it: the two-Starbucks corner has long been a Vancouver landmark, a perverse point of pride. Not as brochure-friendly as the Gastown steam clock, perhaps, but probably more commonly cited as one of Vancouver’s most prominent features. Outsiders seized on it as definitive. Want to understand Vancouver? They have a two-Starbucks intersection. Say no more.

Well, goodbye to all that, but it was time, really. The days when having a lot of Starbucks around made you special disappeared with Monica Lewinsky jokes. Once it marked us as the Canadian California, signifying a laid-back culture where people had nothing more pressing to do all day than drink finicky espresso-based beverages with more clauses than federal budget legislation and names longer than mid-level German army ranks. Now everybody does that. You can get a latte at a Tim Hortons drive-through in Surrey; hipster cachet lies elsewhere. Ten years ago the Vancouver Board of Trade might have been in a panic about this. Now the major implications are restricted to the obnoxious Middle-Aged Motorcycle Club that had long made the southwest corner Starbucks its home base. By now they’ll surely have found a new spot to show off their little metal hats and frapadabapadabap engines.

Some have suggested that this represents another sort of passage, into a new era when even the mighty Starbucks cannot afford Robson rents. But Starbucks spokespeople insisted that the location was still viable revenue-wise. The real sticking point was, apparently, the landlord’s demand to evict at short notice should they decide to renovate or rebuild. Either way, it speaks to the new nature of Robson Street as the closest thing Vancouver has to the Las Vegas Strip – a place where history and character are like weeds on a putting green.

While it’s hard to argue that Robson’s retail turnover is an unrelentingly positive story – the commercial heart of the street is a far less interesting stretch than it used to be – the basic message is upbeat. Greed is a fussy sort of perennial. Where it springs up, it’s a safe bet that conditions are pretty good. And frankly, Vancouverites whining about the turnover on Robson is like Kansans bitching about tornadoes. Those who want to stick around build shelters and keep an eye on the Weather Channel; those of us who long for the days of Robsonstrasse buy bicycles and ride over to Main or Commercial.

And regardless of how generic its retailers have become, Robson does boast one attractive attribute: it’s where people go. On a warm summer night when the urge to mingle in a throng takes hold, Robson is the PNE that never leaves town. If the rent gets to the point where it drives away the gelato shops and shuts down every rooftop patio, then we’ll see the real correction. But until then, get in line. Your extra-hot, half-caf, low-fat frappuccino is only 16 customers away.