Coffee chain rankings
 

The new McD coffee got me thinking about what the coffee rankings are (in quantity and quality).

For quantity (number of outlets) the top 10 coffee chains in US:
Starbucks - 8,000
Caribou Coffee - 322
Tim Horton's - 292
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - 213
Coffee Beanery - 200
Seattle's Best - 160 (which happens to be a subsidiary of Starbucks!)
Peet's Coffee - 112
Tully's - 100
Dunn Bros. Coffee - 85
Port City Java - 55

Which gives some idea of how big Starbucks is!!!!

For quality, of the ones that I have tried for brewed coffee (non-espresso or Americano):
Peet's
Tim Horton
Caribou
McD
Seattle's Best
Starbucks
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

For espresso, no contest out of these choices (Peet's by a mile). Also good was Torrefazione but it only had 17 cafes and is now owned by Starbucks (!!!).

Outside of the US, the product Starbucks sells is completely different -- they sell living room space rather than coffee. And this makes them very successful. People want the comfortable furniture and elbow room that Starbucks offers; I've seen many Starbucks in coffee loving countries where they are jammed and the much better coffee-serving cafe next door is empty (but with tiny tables and chairs jammed together).

Your list of favorites shows how subjective it is to choose the "best" of any food product. I have never tried Tim Horton's, but there is no way I would rate Caribou, McDonald's and Seattle's Best ahead of Starbucks. Of the ones I have tried, I'd have to go:

Peet's
Starbucks
Dunn Bros.
Seattle's Best
Tully's
McD's
Caribou

By the way, if you want coffee (including espresso) that blows away even Peet's, try Intelligentsia in Chicago. There are only a handful of stores (and I believe now one in LA), so I didn't include it on the list of chains above. Seems like it would've been kind of unfair....

I need to stop at a Tim Horton's sometime soon... Not just coffee, which Wegman's carries, but donuts too. :)

Not only is it subjective, but some of the chains vary considerably by store! Of course the "best" single-store cafe will be considerably better than any chain. I would pick a dozen cafes as having better coffee (starting with the beans, some roast their own). I knock Starbucks down for lack of consistency, some of their outlets have had major quality control problems (not surprising with 8000 outlets).

Tim Horton's coffee is interesting. I think they treat the beans to reduce the acid level. In any case there is a distinct Tim Horton's taste which many people like. Mild, mellow and smooth (and very consistent). Easy to tell apart from most other coffee sources. It isn't my favourite but I have to give them credit for this clever product strategy.

Panera Bread wins for me here in the Mile High city.

Starbucks tastes terrible at altitude.
I've had coffee from them at sea level and it was great, but over 5,000 feet it seems to become bitter and burnt.

I think Panera makes a fine cup of coffee as well. Tim Hortons and Dunkin Donuts rank very high for me.

Tully's out in Seattle is pretty good too.

I think part of my enjoyment is that I so rarely get to a Tim Horton's, that it makes it all the more enjoyable for me. :)

There were 345 Tim Hortons outlets in the US in July 2007, so there's gotta be more now.

At the same time, there was 2733 outlets in Canada, in comparison to 400 Starbucks

Unfortunately, none of the Tim Horton's are near me. :( The closest is 4 or 5 hours away.

And for those that like it hot, there is always McDonalds. Not a bad cup of coffee actually.

Saw OP and one other mentioned it. Not sure if it has as many airport outlets as some of the others, but on the road I don't see too many of the others and McD's usually has clean restrooms. You know the old saying "Coffee in, Coffee out" so clean restroom are a must.

My wife thinks Starbucks is too strong, even its decaf.

Again going to the subjectivity thing...I think the worst coffee on earth is at Panera. I've tried them two or three times, and could never even finish the first cup. To my palate, it always seems to taste like it's been on the burner for a couple of hours, and so bad that I don't even think it belongs in a list of coffee places. Fascinating that several people have mentioned it on this list. Not saying that it's wrong, just interesting.

I also find it interesting that someone mentioned that they don't like Starbucks due to "inconsistency." Part of the reason I like Starbucks is that I find it more consistent than any other major chain, except perhaps McDonald's. I went to one in Singapore just to check it out and asked for a House Blend, and found it virtually identical to that served at my local Starbucks. One caveat though: I don't include in this comment those places (like Barnes & Noble Bookstores) that "proudly serve Starbucks coffee." Their level of quality and consistency is all over the map (and generally not so good). Perhaps that was what the above poster was referring to....

One of the best perks of working in SF's FiDi was having a Peet's, a Torrefazione and a Tully's within 2-3 blocks of each other.

All three made fantastic coffee ^

Whoa! Subjective, indeed.

I'll take Starbucks espresso any day over Peet's.

Peet's espresso to my unsophisticated palate seems like they first burned the beans with kerosene, then ground in some dirt and brewed it with pee of Satan after a helping of asparagus. ;)

I do agree with Torrefazione Italia, they were great!

come on people, its all generally the same - aren't there more important things to talk about?

Not comparable in size to the large chains, but I'd like to introduce a smart Italian style concept coffeeshop mini chain to FT. No ties whatsoever to the owners or management.

Galestro is surprisingly the brainchild of a German entrepreneur in Cologne. I've visited their coffeeshop at Cologne Central Station fairly often when in town and as the staff is all Italian thought that it's a family run shop. In the best sense of the word.

You get Italian coffee specialities, snacks and pastries, Italian and local press and some alcoholic drinks from Bella Italia. Interiors are modern, stone and metal mostly. Very pleasant and civilized feel. :)

I do think they'd be open to franchises elsewhere.

http://galestro.com/contenido-4.4.5/...nt_content.php

I love Tim Hortons. Miss it sooo much being out here in Taiwan. Actually purchased a tin of coffee off ebay had it shipped to me here. Most expensive coffee in which I had to make in my life. It was worth it:p

Funny but I would buy McD before having to buy a cup of Starbucks.

I actually like Dunkin Donut coffee as well.

Each to his own.

I still have Torrefazione beans in my freezer (emergency backup when my regular fresh roast isn't roasted). Sadly it seems that Torrefazione no longer sells whole beans (at least not in the distribution channel that I was buying from). Starbucks seems to have bought them to shut down a competitor (or keep it from becoming a larger chain).

More important than coffee? The comments on this thread prove that it isn't the same at all -- even within the same chain. Don't get me started on the difference between Costa Rican dark roast and Blue Mountain and Folgers.

Does anyone know what happened to the Burger King experiment using Douwe Egberts coffee (several years ago)? This was great coffee (for fast food, similar to McD now), using some sort of packaged brewing system from Douwe Egberts (no skill required by staff to operate it). Saw it in several Burger King stores and then it disappeared a few months later. Was it a failed experiment, or did it cost a penny a cup more and BK ditched it?

If by that she means that finding herself awake at 330am after a 8am cup of starbucks decaf (as i do far too often), I recently saw the staff at my local starbucks grinding beans for a pot of decaf, right after grinding beans for a pot of regular...they don't clean those grinders, which means there easily could be some caffeinated coffee mixed in with the newly ground decaf.

When I asked about it, I was told it was SOP to grind one after the other...and that was confirmed by the manager of another local starbucks.

No.

Mmmmm.... Timbits. :D

They need to get into the PIT area, eh kipper?

I know there's one in Olean, as I'm originally from that area. That might be the closest to you. No Wegman's there, though. :(

I generally like Starbucks, but only because there's always one (or more) nearby, and they are reasonably consistent. I spent some time working in Seattle (where there were nine Starbucks within two miles of my hotel and 396 within 50 miles), and found that I actually preferred Tully's lattes to Starbucks. A good latte needs no sweetener, and Starbucks usually do.

I am not a "shop local or else" fanatic--I shop at Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble regularly--but I prefer a good local coffee bar when I can find one. In Pasadena, Jones Coffee Roasters on South Raymond and Equator in Mills Alley make a good latte; in Nashville, Sam & Zoe's is my usual stop on the way from the airport after a redeye. I'd also like to give a ^ to Late for the Train Coffee in Flagstaff, AZ--I've stopped there on a couple of cross-country drives. They make a great breve latte. :)

I'd camp out for their opening if they did!
I know of one in Erie. :D

I also have heard there's a Tim's somewhere off I-64 west of CRW. That's supposedly the only one here in WV.

Being owned by Wendy's (soon to be owned by Arby's), I'm surprised Tim's hasn't expanded more than it has in the states. I've been to one just south of CMH that's a half Wendy's and half Tim's.

Then again, I'm waiting for Sheetz to come to my area (Princeton) as our I-77 exit 9 would be a prime location for the snowbirds coming south. Sheetz has come to Wytheville and Blacksburg VA, so they're getting closer to us. And we just got one of those *$ stores with a drive thru at the exit about 2 months ago. No, I haven't gone there yet, and I hardly see many cars there. We have a Hardees, McD's and a Cracker Barrel there too.

I pretty much can't stand Starbucks espressos and hot coffees, they terrrrribly burn their beans during roasting and it tastes that way to the pallete on the final product.

If I want to just grab a cup of coffee on the road,I will usually seek out a Dunkin Donuts as they have some of the best brewed coffees of any chain, more consistant than others, the coffee tastes the same in Texas, as Florida as New Hampshire or New Jersey(and oh yea up there in the north east there is one on every corner!)

I am not a fan of anything else from dunkin, but the coffee is not bad.

I like to visit local coffee shops but really the quality varies to extremes on this, you can run into some great hidden treasures and then some horrible how are they in business shops(which may vary by shift even due to non standards or lack of training!)

as far as buying the coffee beans I like to roast my own or to buy from a local roaster, outside of local roasters the best I have had is: Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

And generally up in VT, NH, CT and the surrounding areas that have Green Mountain, the coffee tastes great, even at the big fuel outlets, either Green Mountain sales a brewing system standard, or it is just hard to mess up green mountain coffee :)

We're getting a Sheetz 10 minutes from where we live out around Harrisburg. It's still under construction, but I think that Mr. Kipper will be there for opening day. :D

I'm surprised that Tim's hasn't expanded as well. I'm hoping they will but it means that it's such a special treat. :D

Starbucks is bitter, regardless of altitude. :cool: Give me McDonalds any day, or Caribou.

There's a Tim Horton's off of I-70 near Oglebay Resort. We were there recently. :D

I'm curious about how this list came together. If Tim Horton's is on there, where's Dunkin Donuts? The menus and such looked similar when I was there with Tim's maybe having more lunch items.

I rarely drink coffee at home but when I'm on the road I'll choose anyplace convenient.

Wow, it looks like I get to provide a fantastic counterpoint here. Again, there's yet more glorified anti-Starbucks attitude in here. I still have an unproven assumption that it's some sort of Napoleon complex that people have about those who shop in there. People love to Starbucks hate. There was even a thread here where some guy who doesn't go in them wishes they'd close. I think those people more hate the people who go to Starbucks rather than the store itself.

In terms of the rankings, I'd have to put Starbucks at the top for chains. Lately, I've been liking them even more than the indies on the west coast. I always get an appropriate number of shots in my drink depending upon the size. I love the small places, but they seem to think that two shots is enough no matter the size. Starbucks also still innovate. When on the road I love stopping by for their new protein shakes. They're awesome and very healthy. They also now have great food options. Where else can I stop by, grab a protein shake and a bowl of real fruit or a veg plate and be gone in 3 minutes. They're also piloting Clover coffee at a bunch of Seattle locations.

They are a model of efficiency and accuracy. I was waiting in a local shop here for 5 minutes as they'd forgotten my drink. Can't recall that ever happening at a Starbucks. The other big coffee chains just copy what they do.

In terms of the coffee, Starbucks and the other real coffee shops, unlike those donut shops that happen to serve coffee, have more than one variety of coffee. You're not stuck getting their regular blend, they always have lighter and darker blends. For most people who ..... about their coffee (and quite possibly only had it brewed for them in a plane), they could get a lighter blend at the store.

Yes, it's a large, corporate chain that has shut down a number of small coffee shops, but they are very good at what they do. Much of the hate that they see in many cases is just from people who begrudge those that go in there.

I'm amazed at the Tim Horton's awe in here. They basically sell DD type coffee. It's blended so as not to have any actual character. It's akin to how sitcom's screen their shows first and take out any comedy with an edge, so they don't offend anyone or make anything that's actually funny. It's the Everybody Loves Raymond effect. People watch the show. I can't recall anyone ever mentioning a bit from the show and talking about how funny it was. Contrast that with the Chappelle Show. Offended everyone, but you always heard people ranting about it.

Think Tim Whoreton's is a great place? One of their locations fired a long time employee single mother of 4 for giving a Timbit (value $.15, same thing as a Munchkin) to the toddler of a regular customer. Whoreton's later rehired her, but refused to take any actions against their management. You probably thought that Canadians were nice too. Feel free to read the customer service complaints in the post as well. Then get back to me on how bad Starbucks is. Their coffee is so bad that most Canadians order a double double.

When you have to put that much garbage into your coffee you know that you're not really a coffee lover and the coffee isn't that good. In the end, this more or less holds true for everyone who buys coffee at places like DD, McDonald's and Whoreton's. The best coffee comes from methods more advanced than soaking coffee grinds in a paper filter. People who really care about their coffee and are really into coffee realize this. That's why they commonly drink espresso based drinks. Milk ones for the morning and non-milk ones for later in the day.

Drinking a half-assed cup of drip from a low quality, generic bend with no flavors is akin to someone drinking a $10 blended no-name bottle of scotch and telling you that they're a scotch lover or someone drinking a $2 bottle of wine and telling you they're a wine lover. Drink what you want, but you're not that into it.

"The menus and such looked similar when I was there with Tim's maybe having more lunch items. "

Tim Whoreton's does serve made to order sandwiches and their donuts are better than DD. Essentially, they're less sugary than DD.

I'd have my soy latte at an independent espresso bar over any chain. Any day. Especially where bon soy is used.

Though when I visited the US, I noticed it is hard to avoid a chain as there aren't many independents in most cities I visited. Peet's did a decent soy chai latte, oops that's not coffee. :p

Agree with above comments about people adding weird additives to their coffee. I once had to go to a Starbucks for coffee in Melbourne because everything else was closed (over here they realise they can't possibly compete with an already established and dominant espresso culture, so they market themselves on their availability and convenience), and I was v tempted to suggest "what about apple juice?" to people who ordered things like "large, decaf, extra hot, fairtrade, white chocolate mocca's with <insert random flavour> syrup and three sugars to go."

To anyone coming down to Melbourne any time soon, I highly recommend Jaspers Coffee on Brunswick St in Collingwood - choose from one of 20 different coffee beans to be grinded for your coffee. :)

edited to add: Am not being anti-chain here for the sake of being anti-chain, but I just find chain coffee so bland, uniform and drinking at chains to be so clinical and devoid of atmosphere. We have Starbucks, Gloria Jeans (which donates some of their proceeds to an organisation I personally find objectionable so one more reason to avoid them), Hudsons (local chain), Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and the donut ones down here and they're all virtually indistinguishable in terms of their bland product offerings. There's also McCafe by Maccas but I think I'd rather drink out of a dishwasher. About the only time I'd ever drink at a chain is when I have no choice, such as the aforementioned example or going overseas where the native coffee culture is defined by Starbucks.

My son and I found two more... there's one in Marietta OH and one in Parkersburg WV now. On our last trip back from Grandma's house near CAK, we stopped at the one in Marietta and got a big box of Timbits to bring back home... and a large iced coffee for me for on the road. :D

And I finally got desperate enough for coffee last week (i.e. I didn't feel like making it at home) that I got some Pike's Peek blend brewed at our local *$. It was too bad for them.

I like my coffee strong and black, with no sugar. I usually drink from Starbucks, because it's convenient, and I think it tastes OK. I'm not too fond of Costa (the only other chain we have nearby), and we don't have all that many independant coffee shops round here any more :(

I hate fast food coffee. Wetherspoons do a half decent filter coffee drink - well, it's cheap, and hot, and vaguely coffee like) but for the most part I stick to freshly ground coffee to drink at home, bought from a local independent shop that does coffee, honey, wines, and fresh chutneys.

I'll have to remember those locations too. :D

Found a Tim's in Calcutta, OH on our way out to Port Clinton, OH. :D

Where are you located? Tons of them throughout the Toronto area where I am.

In my ideal world, every city would have a coffee shop fair attached to every other local fair, so locals are encouraged to try new things and develop their palate and experience.

Sydney's Aroma Festival at The Rocks, which Jason8612 attended (quite the commute!) is a good try but queues were crazy. Unfortunately it's not possible to run a coffee tasting like a wine tasting. :D

Tea's another matter, though!


[Okay, let's make this USA centric for a moment. It's very possible to brew filtered coffee and compare the coffees side by side, as was done at a few touristy tastings in Captain Cook, Big Island Hawaii. That was a useful quick & dirty way to compare beans. :)]

Perhaps you can treat me to a cuppa the next time I visit Sydney. :D Because everytime I come, I never think of coffee. :p

Was somewhat motivated by your Starbucks Thread. :p

Around Pittsburgh, PA. None in this area. :(