International Concepts Push Foodservice Culture – For Better or Worse

As a native Argentinean, my family goes back for an extended visit each summer. While I wish I could stay with them for their entire stay, I usually only manage a week or so before the real world demands I get back to the office. This year, a lone Starbucks unit in Buenos Aires was big news. With traditional café bars on every corner selling coffee at a fraction of Starbucks’ price, there was a line snaking out of Starbucks with a wait of up to 40 minutes.

Starbucks was drawing a younger crowd that wanted to hang out, as well as “see and be seen.” Beyond being “new” and “international,” Starbucks has been a wake-up call for the cafés. Argentineans are used to drinking their coffee in a certain way: You sit down; order; and a staff member serves your coffee in a cup and saucer, with a small cookie on the side. For the first time, Starbucks put the coffee in a paper cup and handed it to the customer to drink it wherever they wanted. It may seem like such a little thing, but in Argentina, this is huge.

Two months after Starbucks opened in Buenos Aires, some of the cafés were also offering coffee to-go. While some would mourn the change, others would say, “about time.”

An Aug. 6 Reuters article “Russian Diners Say ‘Nyet’ to Soviet Service” talks about how the influx of international restaurants has changed expectations. Russians no longer accept the traditional “slow, erratic and surly service.” There’s a great deal of growth in the mid-priced concepts, with large chains now owning about a third of the restaurants in Moscow. Muscovites can choose among a multitude of options, raising the bar for everyone in the foodservice business. The customer wins.

I’m off to Moscow. Da sveedanya.