MDMI--Mc Donalds????
March 26, 1999
Britons joining coffee bar craze; Now
McDonald's hopes to benefit
LONDON (AP) -- Forget the morning "cuppa."
Increasing numbers of Britons, forsaking their traditional cup of breakfast
tea, are lining up at coffee bars to order the likes of a semi-skimmed
cappuccino with a double shot of espresso.
Seeking to cash in on explosive growth in British coffee bars, McDonald's
Corp. has become the latest U.S. heavyweight to enter the market here.
The hamburger and french fry giant has bought Aroma Ltd., a chain of 23
shops that sell coffee concoctions and sandwiches in a lively atmosphere of
recorded Caribbean music and bright yellow and orange decor. The deal,
announced this week, is reportedly worth between $16 million and $24
million US, and marks the first time McDonald's has ever invested in
anything but a hamburger chain outside the United States.
Statistics are scarce, but the number of tony coffee bars in Britain has
proliferated in the last three years, particularly in London and the more
cosmopolitan southeast.
They appeal to a young, professional crowd, and their popularity reflects a
change toward a faster-paced lifestyle -- one in which people want a
good-tasting jolt of caffeine and a cafe setting in which to enjoy it.
"In Britain, tea has always been the big drink. It's a very homely drink, much
more than coffee. People associate English afternoon cream tea with their
granny," said Sara Jenkins, a marketing assistant with Pret A Manger
(Europe) Ltd. -- a coffee and snack chain that aims to serve each customer
in less than 90 seconds.
A well-steeped cup of tea with milk still has its loyalists, and tourists can
indulge in the ritual of afternoon tea at London's fancier hotels. But coffee
bars, which have been around for decades, began taking off in the 1990s.
Much of the spark for their growth has come from abroad.
Starbucks Coffee Co. blazed a trail across Britain last year, when it paid
$87 million for a chain of 56 coffee shops founded by a pair of expatriates
from Seattle, Wash.
Costa Ltd., one of the first British coffee chains, was started by two Italian
brothers. Aroma was founded in 1991 by a Swiss businessman frustrated by
his difficulty in finding a good cup of coffee at the time.
"It's more European. People like someplace they can just drop in and spend
20 minutes or an hour, read the newspaper and have a coffee," said Lizzie
Baldwin, 34, as she and her 12-year-old son, Joshua, polished off a pair of
cappuccinos at a downtown Aroma shop for about $2.25 a pop.
For some people, the new wave of British coffee bars offers what
sociologists call the "third place" -- a place other than home or the
workplace where people can meet and relax. Their attraction seems
especially strong for women, shop owners say.
"The traditional British pub has been at the centre of society as a meeting
place, but it's a male society," said Andrew Barrett, a director with APAX
Partners and Co., the former majority owner of Aroma. "The coffee shop is
a lot less threatening for women."
Britain's first coffee bars cropped up some 40 years ago, many of them run
by immigrants from Italy and Greece. Groups of mods, the stylish youths
who built a 1960s cult around motor scooters and amphetamines, gathered
at them much as American teen-agers spent long evenings at drive-ins and
pizza joints.
One of the keys to the modern coffee bar's success is the customer's feeling
that each cup of coffee has been custom-made. At Costa Ltd., a chain of
140 shops, employees brew coffee to order from imported beans that the
company roasts itself, said managing director Mike Dowell.
Despite a stiff price of $1.60 to $2 for a small cup of black coffee, shops in
downtown London do a brisk business each weekday morning. At some of
them, cappuccinos are the most popular hot drink.
"It's still not like the States. But you do see a few people carry take-out
coffee, which 10 years ago you wouldn't have seen at all," Barrett said.
Before purchasing Aroma, McDonald's had bought a stake in only one
other business outside its traditional fast-food fare -- a restaurant chain in
Denver, Coio. called Chipotle Mexican Grill. McDonald's expects Aroma to
complement its strengths in family-style fast food with a more adult-oriented
fare, said Eddie Bensilum, a company spokeswoman.
She refused to say whether the company plans, like Starbucks, to use
Britain as a jumping-off point to expand into continental Europe. Either way,
coffee bars in this country have yet to reach their full potential, analysts say.
Starbucks employees still laugh about the day they opened their first shop in
Manchester, Britain's second-largest city, said Lisa Doncaster, a store
manager in London.
"The first customer came in," she said, "and all he wanted was a cup of tea.
Which he got, of course." |
