How exactly does Starbucks, a Seattle based coffee franchise constructed with all the precision of a Swiss watch, achieve non-profitability?

Here’s the breakdown, according to our readers email and comments.

Kids:
14 yr old summer school knuckleheads, or any variety of Ft. Hamilton student for that matter, occupying 1/3 – 1/2 of your full on retail space for an entire day, without buying anything while scaring away your core demographic – doesn’t help your bottom line.

As a matter of fact, it’s what all those cantankerous mom ‘n’ pops call ‘loitering,’ and for good reason.

Customer loyalty (not):
Sitting with a cup from a Venti non-fat latte that you’ve had since the 91st street Starbucks first opened, while siphoning free coffee off the newer Starbucks (clearly abusing the 50 cent – free refill privileged) is not customer loyalty.

How about, instead of encouraging free-loaders with free/.50 refills (that no other competitor is offering), you stop charging for internet access, which, in turn, will encourage paying customers (read: yuppies) who’ll gladly lay down 5 bucks for some pink coffee whipped creme laden float in exchange for free unlimited wi-fi?

Kids (reprised):

Take the party back to mom ‘n’ dad’s house, please.

“Touchy-feely wanna-be Park-Slope skater-dudes in cigarette leg jeans — decked out in New Found Glory or ‘bedazzled’ Ed Hardy tees — taking up prime seating while they bemoan their teenage ‘Boys Don’t Cry‘ bullshit, while the only two girls flirt with Lindsay lesbianism and talk endlessly about all the brands of Marlboro they’ve been smoking, like, since, ‘forever.’ All the while pretending to grapple with whatever angst their prepubescent MTV, Real World, Gossip Girls, HILLS (ugh), sense of decorum has taught them.”

Let’s think about this for a moment, shall we, Starbucks?

Your piping in Harry Connick jr/ Michael Bubble elevator music for a bunch of 16 yr old thug-gangasta chicks, who’re talking about how they just “laid out some cunt” at some other thug-gangsta’s house-party because, “she was straight up ho.”

While gangsta-chicky (#1) tells her other ‘friend,’ Gangsta-chicky (#2) about her pregnant friend who’s on her 7th child: ‘Yo, yuck, I told her to get rid of it!’

[obligatory cigarette break]

“Yo, I said that was like rape even if it was your cousin!”

‘Radults’:

Readers ask us not to forget that thin, anemic looking ‘Devil Wears Prada‘ chick, who could easily pass for Paris Hilton’s slightly more annoying twin, as she goes on about her, and her equally vapid, yet just as well accessorized, zombie of a ‘girlfriend’ who are thinking of launching a ‘hip-hop’ label.

Even though it’s common knowledge to anyone in the hip-hop industry that the only role a rich, white, and, more importantly, ignorant — to the point of not understanding thing one about hip-hop outside of which pair of $600 sunglasses your wanna-be ‘Making the Band’ version of Eric B. and Rakim are going to wear for product placement — is being the meat in a Snoop Dog sandwich.

Product:
At the end of the day, the coffee just isn’t enough of a draw.

Burnt, dark, and indistinct.

(photo courtesy flikr)