Juan Valdez coffee shop in nyc

The coffee federation is trying to start their own chain of coffee shops, competing with Starbucks and co. We're in the NYC flagship store right now, and I'm very, very dissapointed. THe coffee is badly made (cappucino), the "free" internet requires you to give away your personal information to get access (I am using another network right now), and the decoration is ugly - nothing Colombian. So: it's not gonna work. The whole coffee shop experiment is a waste of money. This money comes directly from the coffeegrowers (they have been putting money in the federation for years), and it's being wasted.

By Peter (Moderator) on Feb 14, 2005, 08:42 in Friendly Talkzone.

Tinto (Moderator) says on Feb 14, 2005, 08:53:

And yesterday there was a story about them signing a $275 USD per square foot lease in Times Square for 19 years. Over $523K a year in rent alone. The store is supposed to open in June or July.

They are either unorganized or in over their heads or something. They were to have stores in Miami, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, LA by now. They only have one in NYC and one in DC.

I hope they figure things out. At a minimum, they ought to be selling their coffee online or telling people where their stores are, but www.juanvaldezcafe.com has been nothing but a placeholder site for many months.

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Miamigo says on Feb 14, 2005, 09:17:

I don't think they're directly competing with Starbucks Starbucks is for a different crowd. I don't know. I do know that the juanvaldezcafe.com website is working. Peter could even have put his complaints about his experience in the suggestion box there.

http://www.juanvaldezcafe.com/jvcafe/sugerencias.jsp?idioma=espanol

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Miguel says on Feb 14, 2005, 09:35:

Right Tinto They give you the tease about buying their coffee, then you follow the link to a dead end.

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juanalejo says on Feb 14, 2005, 11:55:

Juan Valdez I read an article about the architect last week and he said Seattle was ready to open. Then they are heading to Europe to open a few there, but did not say anything about timings.

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Feb 14, 2005, 12:00:

Have you heard anything about selling branded beans in U.S. or European grocery stores? I think that could be successful and it was mentioned in one of their press releases. There was also a mention of plans for cold coffee drinks (like the Starbucks Frappacinos in cans and bottles).

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jaramillo says on Feb 15, 2005, 17:55:

the genuine thing I expect these coffee shops to be as genuine as Juan Valdez, namely, not very. I swear there was never an arriero who carried that last name. Has anyone, ever, met a paisa named Valdez, especially spelled with a Z? The current actor who plays the character is Carlos Sanchez, a paisa from Fredonia (which produces good coffee, by the way).

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crispeta says on Feb 15, 2005, 21:05:

Seattle Soon Juan Valdez will be here in Seattle to bring down Starbucks!

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