Is Starbucks Fast Food?

I guess it all depends on how you define “fast food.” If you focus on the speed aspect, then I would say, yes–Starbucks manages to serve up a fair number of food and beverage orders pretty quickly, and usually, pretty accurately. If you focus on the subject matter specified in the label, then, again, yes–Starbucks has moved way past coffee. They offer not only a pretty wide selection of baked goods, varying throughout the year, but they now have fruit and cheese platters, sandwiches, salads, and heated breakfast sandwiches. I don’t understand it, but Starbucks can sell a breakfast sandwich that is eerily similar to the one you can get at the nearest fast-food restaurant (I’m not, of course, referring to the Starbucks sandwich that has spinach in it), and yet, for some reason, the Starbucks sandwich tastes so much more refined, at least, when you know it’s from Starbucks. I’ve often wondered if Starbucks food and drinks would taste the same if you didn’t know who made them. But, that’s a whole ‘nother rabbit trail, for another day . . . .

Consider the food genre, as a whole. “Fast food” carries the increasingly inaccurate connotation of being cheap (which Starbucks isn’t), greasy (which Starbucks isn’t), and convenient (which Starbucks is starting to be). With the growing number of drive-thru windows, besides the fact that you can find a Starbucks on almost every corner, in many towns, convenience is becoming more and more a reality, in this niche of the coffee-shop world. The fact that they all offer essentially the same foods and beverages adds to the fast-food similarity, without, somehow, taking away from the novelty of it all. It does give one a sense of confidence, knowing that I can probably order a pretty similar, if not exactly the same, drink, no matter what Starbucks I visit. With all the options to consider, that knowledge of their consistency is really a great comfort. Who wants to look like an imbecile, especially in a little shop like Starbucks, where everybody always seems to know everybody?

The biggest problem in classifying the chain is that they’re not just a coffee shop, and they’re not even just a restaurant, anymore. Starbucks manages to sell toys and CDs, in addition to all things coffee (i.e., cups, travel mugs, coffee makers, espresso machines, and a number of gadgets that take some consideration to identify), not to mention the coffee and the food, and, somehow, it works for them. They’re popular, and not just with single, rich, cool people anymore. We average Joes have discovered that we can stop in and get a plain ol’ cup of coffee, unadorned, for not a whole lot more than the neighborhood gas station, and the coffee won’t be burnt, unless we want it that way.

So, does Starbucks qualify as a fast-food chain? I’m going to say no, until fast-food chains branch out and sell more than just fast food.