With several Starbucks locations popping up around Ottawa in the past year, Centretown coffee shop owners are diversifying their products to keep customers coming back.
"I made sure coffee was not my only bread and butter," says Angelo Perseo, owner of Paesani’s Caffe on Preston Street. Perseo’s café also boasts a liquor license in order to offer customers something that big chains like Starbucks, which opened up shop just down the street a few years ago, cannot.
"My clientele is different," he explains. "They are more traditional, and they don’t want to pay five dollars for a cup of coffee."
But despite its troubles south of the border – where many Starbucks are closing due to the poor state of the economy – Starbucks in Ottawa is expanding. Thanks to the steady Canadian market, says Nick Seliwoniuk, spokesperson for Starbucks Coffee Company Canada, the company is growing across Canada.
The coffee chain now has 13 locations in Centretown alone. In 2008 Starbucks added four new shops to its roster in Ottawa, plopping another store into the Centretown neighbourhood in August at the corner of Kent Street and Albert Street. Seliwoniuk notes they will be increasing that number again this winter.
Sauzy Kaddoura, owner of small local chain Manhattan’s Coffee, opened up another location in May and says the business, which has three shops all located downtown, is doing better than ever.
“We have not been affected at all,” he says.
Perseo says the coffee lovers who help businesses like his run make a choice to buy local.
Candice So, an Ottawa resident and self-described coffee junkie, says she drinks three to four cups a day, and will buy anything but Starbucks when she has the choice.
She says she doesn’t want to be a part of the Starbucks “cult following,” and would prefer the variety that local shops can offer.
So says she makes a point of buying local and fair trade coffee whenever possible. She adds that it is important to keep local businesses going to ensure quality by keeping lots of competition in the market.
“It’s not a big part of my life,” she shrugs, “but it makes me feel a little better.”