Rich Kids Fuel Starbucks’ Argentine Foray

“Starbucks is humbled and honored to be welcomed into Argentina, a country with a rich coffeehouse culture,” said Buck Hendrix, president of Starbucks Latin America. “We look forward to becoming a part of this great tradition and contributing to its prosperity. We have found that when we share our passion for the highest-quality coffee available and the Starbucks Experience in a new market, we help the local specialty coffee industry flourish, benefiting consumers and other coffeehouses.”

In 1986, when McDonald’s opened shop in Argentina, many predicted their plastic burgers would flop in the land of delicious, cheap, grass-fed meat. To a large extent they were correct. McDonald’s definitely did not thrive here as it has in other parts of the world. But Ronald McBitchass has been a hit purely from a marketing point of view -- that is, by hard-selling something to a public that did not necessarily want or need what it was pushing. Shunned by the beef-eating, savvier adult demo, Big Mac and company nevertheless became popular from the jump with a very specific yet highly influential demographic: middle- to upper-middle-class teenagers.

Going to McDonald’s in Buenos Aires in the early 90s meant two things: very expensive, shitty hamburgers (relative to the cost of, say, a superior tasting choripan) and clusters of bratty, spoiled adolescents hanging out for hours on end, smoking cigarettes and venting hormones on the plastic benches. Thus McDonald’s managed to carve out a little niche for itself, and after all these years settled into its role quite nicely as a purveyor of low-cost garbage to a (now) lower-income adolescent bracket. The upper-middle-class teens who originally helped McD’s establish its brand in Buenos Aires and influenced their poorer counterparts eventually moved on. Now they’re back, but instead of ordering McMilanesas under the golden arches, they’re picking up double dulce de leche frappuccino at Starbucks. 

Buenos Aires is home to a renowned, storied café culture (as the exceptionally-named Buck Hendrix alluded to in the above Starbucks press release) where the concept of “to go” coffee (or to go anything, for that matter) doesn’t really exist. When you sit down at any of BA’s countless, phenomenal cafes and order a simple coffee, you typically get a little glass of sparkling water, a little glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, some token pastries to accompany the coffee, along with the coffee itself (always of the espresso-maker variety). A tidy meal. In other words, a radically different concept than the lightning-fast cardboard cups that are whisked in and out the door at Starfucks.

Last week, a new Starbucks opened in Palermo Soho—the trendiest neighborhood in all of Argentina, similar to Nolita in New York, but bigger. I went to the counter and ordered an iced coffee from the eager newbie barista. The kid next to me was clearly of upper-middle-class teenager stock. Expensive clothes, suitably preppy Zona Norte suburban accent, and clearly in a Starbucks for the first time. In fact, it’s safe to say he probably hadn’t ordered or drank a coffee in his entire life. Only adults drink coffee in Buenos Aires—kids drink Coca Cola, or, at home, Mate. The overeager kid ordered four separate elaborate frappuccino concoctions, managed to walk back to his table without spilling any on his brand-new kicks, and sat there making faces as he sampled this strange new thing called Starbucks. In a country where an average salary for a young person tops out at $350 a month, the cost of this experiment came in at over $20. Mommy and Daddy’s money is clearly fueling Starbucks initial battle against the traditional cafés of Buenos Aires.

The next evening, I hit the first Starbucks to open in Buenos Aires, located inside the busy, affluent Alto Palermo shopping mall. This flagship branch opened last June and already has an established presence in the life of the mall. The scene was straight Buenos Aires 90210, along with a puzzled smattering of foreigners in cargo shorts. I waited in line for 20 minutes as the giddy coffee virgins checked each other out and nervously ordered frappuccinos, and I was reminded of the initial days of McDonalds in Buenos Aires. Starbucks will succeed in spite of itself and its surroundings because, like McDonalds, it first cleverly positioned itself in places where gullible, rich young people congregate—and then courted them aggressively. The fashionable, imported novelty of McDonalds in 1986, and now Starbucks in 2009, as the perfect backdrop for adolescent posturing would appear to trump all for the tween set—eclipsing actual quality, entrenched culture, a little glass of fresh squeezed, and the simple fact that these kids don’t even like coffee.