sbux

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) breakfast buzz, for what it's worth, seems to have died down for the moment, -- at least I'm no longer getting four or five news alerts daily in my email inbox. Like Portland, this offerings are not new in my hometown of Seattle, and I failed to credit the interest their introduction would generate in the mainstream media. Online, some customers posted their pictures and comments of the breakfast purchase on Flickr. Warning: these are not professional, studio produced advertising shots, but actual representations of breakfast sandwiches in all their greasy glory -- not for the faint hearted. Although outside the breakfast area, a Tokyo lunch-goer called this Starbucks tuna melt yummy, and it doesn't look quite so bad.

The Starbucks Gossip blog solicited barista reactions to the NYC rollout of warm breakfast which has turned up a responses from Starbucks employees. "NycBearista" noting that he or she was the "warming partner" (I will not be surprised if that is an actual job title) on roll out day, noted that the new task made opening duties go much slower, and since it's now store policy to "warm anything."

It was about eight months ago that a Starbucks opened on my corner here in SE Portland, Oregon. It wasn't much later that breakfast sandwiches, yummy-looking concoctions with eggs, cheese, sausage, black forest ham, spinach, and all kinds of savory goodness started appearing in the case. It was new to me, because the sandwiches were served warm, a big change from Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX)'s usual refrigerated deli-case fare.

Manhattan, prepare to be second in something for the first time. A wire story peaked up on my screen this morning: "Starbucks offers warm sandwiches, cookies in N.Y." I was wowed to see the menu items I've been getting in my own local 'Bucks will be rolled out in Manhattan Starbucks stores over the next several months, not arriving in all New York metro area locations until summer 2007.

I can't help but feel a bit superior as I trip back in my file photos and find a warm, toasty, delicious breakfast sandwich -- bacon, egg, and cheese -- taken back in April. Hee. Hee. Teehee.

It's an interesting peak into marketing strategy. Isn't New York always the first? And the press release about the warm sandwiches: I never saw one advertising warm sandwiches being rolled out in the Pacific Northwest. I guess we're first here in the rainy west, but Starbucks isn't bragging on us.