Mmmm...Coffee Cake.

So you're driving down the main street and you're hungry. You don't really know the area, but you're looking for somewhere to get a coffee and a pastry. You spot some little coffee shop to your left but you think you see that familiar green Starbuck's sign down the street, so you keep driving. Eventually you're close enough to recognize that it is a Starbuck's and immediately park and go inside, completely forgetting about that little coffee shop a block behind you. You rattle off your usual drink order and look in the glass case in search of something to eat.
Now, I'll admit Starbuck's is pretty good, but one of the main reasons people always stop there is because they recognize its name. That poor little coffee shop you drove right passed could make the best coffee and treats in the world, but you wouldn't know it because you wanted the familiarity Starbuck's provides. There are plenty of little coffee shops by my house that make little treats and snacks that are so much better than the things Starbuck's leaves in their display case, but unfortunately all those little shops don't nearly as much business compared to Starbuck's because they aren't well known.
In class we talked about social capital and this idea was presented to us: lazy people who live in nice neighborhoods are more likely to get farther in life than motivated people who live in poor neighborhoods. Although I don't necessarily agree with this, it relates to the idea that Starbucks could sell some crappy type of coffee cake and more people would buy it than the most amazing coffee cake made at the coffee shop around the corner. Gelato Vero is one of the coffee shops I had in mind; they have some of the most amazing coffee cake ever :)