It's official. The season is getting sort of silly. First there is the working, the lunches and the working lunches. Next there are the shopping lunches, where scoffed sushi and commando gift grabs have even the mall rats scurrying. It’s beginning to feel like a lot like, you know, Quick-mas. With an 8.47am pitstop at Hudsons Coffee on Hindley (KW corner), Tuesday's children demand that quickie coffee experience. Can Hudsons Coffee put the express into espresso? The Order: two standard lattes, skim, takeaway. The Price: $3.80 pp.It's been a long time since MMC ventured into a Hudsons Coffee. Until the shame of upsized cupwear, we could not remember why.
The Shopspace: at commuter-o-clock, whistle-clean and underoccupied. The Shopwalls: the Hudsons take on eclectic doodles is no more irritating than Cibo's/Wild Thyme's. The Signage: ahhh yes. The novelty beverages. Hudsons equals the cutesy ‘caramelatte’, and the cream-topped sweet nothings. At the sight of whirly ice machines, coffee snobbishness switches on.
Slightly sprinklephobic, we go with the takeaway flow. How 'Hudsons' of us, you may remark. Because opening their first Melbourne store in 1998, Hudsons aimed to fill a hole in the Aussie coffee market – a takeaway-cup-sized hole. Their mission statement (ish): quality coffee - sometimes with sprinkles - served efficiently to time-poor professionals. At over 50 stores nationally, can they claim the ‘Aussie Starbucks’ moniker? Alas, sitting pretty in the fastest-growing-franchises forty since forever, Queen Gloria Jean seems to wear that crown.
Reportedly recession-proof, coffee business is a Big Deal to the Aussie franchising sector. (At $128 billion+, the Aussie franchising sector is a Big Deal in itself.) Unbeknownst to most, the AUS and USA experiences are a little different in this regard. News flash: coffee dinosaur Starbucks is not actually a franchise. Gasp! Provided the prospective parents ‘divest themselves of ALL other business interests’, Hudsons will gladly foster out their franchise babies. Company-run Starbucks, on the other hand, has never ‘needed’ the reliance of a strong kum ba yah network. They only effect licensing agreements to get into prime real estate such as airports, hospitals, and Rundle Mall, South Australia. Did this difference contribute to the SA Starbucks epic fail? We'll never know.
Now We Know: that despite the frappe frippery, Hudsons is not the Aussie Starbucks. For one, at $3.80, a two-shot Hudsonian is better value than that of our now-departed green friends. But the DIY trimmings, including vanilla sugar? My first cave-in to upsizing, and that comfortable carry-me-to-work temperature? The legacy lives on.
Link: 'December Franchising Busy Defying Economic Downturn', December 2009
I'm just catching up on mmc's and other news waiting for my delayed flight to Vegas- I had a chance to get a real americn style coffee from the first (although some people debte it is only the longest running) starbucks at pikes market in Seattle. American coffee is one of the biggest jokes, the standard cup is pulled from a tank of brewed, bitter and brown liquid similar to what you would expect to find in the most mediocre of office blocks. It's only saving grace is the size an price- about $2.25 for a grande which is about a large in Aussie-spec.
ReplyDeleteThe closest thing I could find to a flat white was starbucks' caffelate but it's a long shot and varies wildly from store to store. People have no idea either- someone in LA ordered a green tea frappacino with extra froth. Enough said.