The hotly anticipated — and sometimes derided — Stowe Starbucks quietly opened on Main Street Tuesday.
The softly lit interior was sparsely populated, with some customers ordering drinks and then departing or picking up their order made through the corporation’s app as if it was magically conjured onto the counter. Panoramic windows give customers a wide-open view of the primary village corridor, the Stowe Community Church and surrounding hillside.
Stowe has been abuzz at the prospect of a Starbucks opening on Main Street since it was constructed by Graham and Cristina Mink as an add-on to their country store, Stowe Sweets and Gold Rush Arcade businesses last year.
Some have been excited for the arrival of the coffeehouse, ubiquitous in most urban centers, while others chafed at the prospect of the first major multinational chain to open a stand-alone location in Stowe since the town’s McDonald’s location closed in the early 2000s. The location even saw a self-described frequent visitor to Stowe, though a primary resident of Florida, protesting the location before it even opened last summer.
On Tuesday morning, however, those who happened to notice the Stowe Starbucks had opened were enthusiastic.
Alyssa Berry, a recent graduate of Stowe High School, and Makayla Braggete, a current student, both stopped in to get their favorite Starbucks drinks, a caramel crunch frappucino for Berry and a strawberry acai beverage simply known as the “pink drink” for Braggete. Both said the new location would be their primary cafe destination in town.
Jake Nardi, a ski tutor at Stowe Mountain Resort, described himself as a “gas station coffee guy” who stops in at Maplefields for a cup of joe in the early mornings on his way into work.
On Tuesday morning, he was headed to Black Cap Coffee, the locally owned chainlet that was formerly the only cafe on Main Street, but saw that the Starbucks was far less busy with much more open seating for him to sit down with his laptop and his simple cup of black coffee.
While Starbucks and Black Cap are diametrically opposed in many ways, from ownership structure to price point, only time will tell if the two coffeeshops can coexist across the street from one another.
For now, the Seattle-based bean roaster seems content to simply open its doors.
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