"Bucks."

Starbucks took a good thing that used to be an aquired, intelligent activity (gourmet coffee/cappuccino drinking) and made it mainstream. That's my beef with them. Nike, Apple, Microsoft and Ford all are in in business for mainly the same reason, making money.
Call me a coffee snob (I do all the time) but I believe that I'm "old school" coffee. I was trying new, fruit flavored blends of frothed milk and coffee long before "that corporation" had made it big time...at least on the east coast and where I had been before. Used to go to places that had good coffee because I wanted just that, quality coffee. Now, sitting in starbucks drinking a Venti Carmel Hazelnut Nonfat Late, while musing over your latest class assignment (or real estate deal) is the new chic. I was in starbucks just today, GASP!, and talking with a friend about it something similar to what I am saying now, and have said before. There was the college kids diligently studying with the ambient music provided, caffeine coursing through their veins.
For a po-dunk town like pensacola, where there's no art to speak of and probably not a whole lot of thought inducing locales, Starbucks brings with it a sense of worldism along with the other shops here: Pier One Imports, The Melting Pot (fondue), and the BMW dealership. It can help the citizens to think that this place does indeed, have culture and trick them into thinking something that wouldn't otherwise happen:What cappuccino mixture will I have to start my day today?