You know how much I like coffee and it is sometimes fascinating and a little bit scary when you start to realize how many coffee places there are around
Anchorage.
The kiosks and little coffee huts are everywhere.
When I first arrived in Alaska the first project I worked on was building the UAA Library. I first noticed the coffee kiosks driving the four miles from my house to the UAA University jobsite. There were 12 places to stop in or drive up to for a cup of java on that short distance to and from work.
My favorite place to stop was called “Sugar Shack Espresso” on my way to the project where I would get myself and Tom, my job foreman a cup everyday. The two ladies that worked there would see my ‘rig’ pull in and have my cups ready before I pulled up to the window. The project lasted almost a year and a half with many cups of java consumed.
Shortly after the library project I was involved in the first Anchorage Starbucks being built in one of the grocery stores here. After several of those were installed we built the first downtown Starbucks location on 5th Avenue in the Key Bank building. It was another success and more and more locations were opened in strip malls and grocery stores all over town. There are 18 Starbucks locations within a 10 mile radius and the funny part is 2/3 of that circle is water while only 1/3 is actually land mass.
There are probably ten times more the little mom & pop coffee huts on street corners and in parking lots all over the Anchorage bowl. Coffee is everywhere. All day long, all night long it is easy to find a cup. I am reminded of the ‘video arcade’ fad years ago when they sprang up everywhere but quickly faded and closed the doors. They are not fading here in Alaska as more and more huts spring up every week it seems. There have been several locations around town where multiple kiosks were in the same parking lot. One of which several of the girls who worked for one coffee hut, quit, and started their own business right next to the one that they had previously worked. They had hoped the customers would change and follow them to the location next door but I do not think it turned out quite like the two girls had counted on.
I knew it was bad, but I had no idea that Anchorage leads the nation in Starbucks per capita until I started researching this blog. According to an article found here:
The article states, "In Anchorage — the city in the
United States with the most (Starbucks) shops per capita — there are three coffee shops for every 10,000 people.
In the
Seattle area, there are 2.5 coffee shops for every 10,000. "
So much for our rough outdoorsy image, now we are in the same class as Seattle or {shutters} San Francisco brimming with yuppies. We really don’t have that many ‘yuppies’ here but almost everyone loves to drink coffee. I do not think it is because we have cold weather here as there are people lined up in the summer months for a cup or that quick snack to keep us going during the long hours of sunlight.
Maybe Alaska is becoming more like ‘NCIS’ where Mark Harmon is continually drinking his Starbucks during each episode. By the time each episode ends problems are solved and several Starbucks cups are scattered on the tables or thrown away. I figure many Alaskans are drinking all this coffee so we can solve our many issues faced here.
There has always been ANWAR and whether to drill for more oil there or the heated debates about the Natural Gas Pipeline . . . should we go through Canada to Chicago or keep it in Alaska to Valdez for the LPG tankers to take the gas to California or Mexico for processing. During the last election the mockery of “the Bridges to Nowhere” which for one, the Anchorage bridge across the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet would lessen the commute time for thousands of people who work in Anchorage. It is actually a great idea and would actually “go somewhere” for many people. Maybe more coffee will settle the debates on our subsistence fishing rights or whether the commercial fishing guides are allowed to let their clients haul in that extra halibut each day like years past. I know I have drank two cups myself just writing this blog tonight.
It started to occur to me that Anchorage is becoming more and more like the lower 48 and less and less like Alaska. The good thing is that Anchorage is still only a short drive away from the ‘real’ Alaska. I can drive ten minutes from my house and be in the wilderness that many of us seek and are still drawn to after living here awhile. Turnagain Arm is one of the most beautiful drives in the world and is breath taking each time I journey through the area on my way to or from my ‘wild Alaska’ playground.
Hopefully this infestation won't spread out of the Anchorage bowl. Target is on the way this spring and the new Bed, Bath, and Beyond will surely help many of us with that special bath oils Alaskans have been so missing. Our new Golden Corral Steak house surpassed all the sales records in the chains history in its first month of operation here recently. Progress is coming to Alaska and we do enjoy many of benefits of their bringing stores and restaurants here but the day they build a Starbucks on the banks of the Kenai or at the entrance to Denali, we'll know that Alaska has become exactly what many fled from in the lower 48 when we came to Alaska. Escaping the big cities, the crowds, and that closed in feeling brought many of us to this beautiful landscape. Hopefully we won’t allow ourselves to ruin it wanting to be ‘like other places’.
Too many Starbucks in Alaska is not the end of the world as we know it, but I think we're starting to get a pretty good view here from the cheap seats of how things can progress that way sometimes. I love my coffee but I don’t think I really want one close by my favorite fishing or hiking spot.
Latte? No I think I’ll just have a cup of Joe.
Ice
Comments