Starbucks makes bold move into rural, blue-collar market

OXFORD, Ala. -- There's not even one customer inside the new Starbucks here in Oxford, a blue-collar burg in the northeast corner of Alabama, midway between Atlanta and Birmingham. But is this empty cafe a sign that the Seattle bean-roaster's bold new move into small towns and near interstate offramps is but spilt milk?

Hardly, says manager Craig Sloan, pointing to the drive-through window, where busy baristas are literally pumping gallons of aged Javanese crude to a traffic jam of customers drawn in by a coffeehouse first: a 60-foot-tall Starbucks sign next to the I-20 offramp, nuzzling the Golden Arches. ''We're the most profitable Starbucks in the Birmingham-Atlanta market -- combined!" Sloan said.

Out here by the interstate, where the truck stop coffee often has a dishwater tang, this inwardly quiet test-site Starbucks -- which opened in July -- is still an anomaly, a tad out of place among Flying-J truck stops and the Waffle House. As the country's chief barista employer hangs its green sign on the interstate and on rural Main Streets, some marketing specialists say it's a case of urban values on the lam, the spread of the caffeine-fueled liberal salon into conservative corners of the country. But whether the sophisticated Starbucks ''experience" and its dark brew can make inroads into the heartland, some say, is a matter of politics as much as palate.

''Small-town America is clearly Dunkin' Donuts land, and I think Starbucks coffee is too strong for rural America," said John Zogby, the pollster who first discovered ''The Starbucks Divide" that defines, in a cup, the country's political maelstroms.

The culture clash is painfully evident: A Starbucks CD offering of Alanis Morrisette unplugged might have trouble competing with the racks of Willie Nelson cassettes over at the Flying-J. But today's coffee kings are finding the interstate offramp a profitable, if predictable, frontier -- a transient village of red-eyed travelers in search of a potent pick-me-up.

''With locations in 50 states, we have the opportunity to open stores off-highways and in rural communities," said Sanja Gould, a Starbucks spokeswoman, noting the Oxford store is part of that movement.

To be sure, Green Mountain Coffee has long been in convenience stores, and Dunkin' Donuts, which has a grip on backroads more than any other coffee franchise, is trying stronger brews. And interstate staple McDonald's is fighting back with Arabica bean roasts to be rolled out soon.

''Starbucks isn't entirely new to the roadside game, but they're certainly going to help drive that market," said Judith Ganes, a coffee market analyst in Katonah, N.Y.

But at the very least, the Oxford Starbucks -- one of only a handful in select locations across the land -- is a test of the ability of specialty brew to cross cultural lines. As Starbucks gets set to increase the number of its outlets from 7,000 to 15,000 stands nationwide, many in smaller towns and on the interstate, baristas here on the I-20 say a different segment of America may be waking up to expensive coffee: Instead of cappuccinos that the hipsters order in Atlanta's artist quarters, this drive-through market is partial to milky, sweet, iced-coffee drinks. ''It's definitely a different crowd," said one barista who had worked in Atlanta.

In fact, traveling salesman Dean Norris of Birmingham says America's interstates are a true melting pot.

''Once you taste a good cup of coffee, you can't go back to hot colored water," he said, I-20 roaring like a waterfall behind him.

Political crossover notwithstanding, this latest move is seen by many coffeehouse aficionados as another reason to hate Starbucks, which critics contend used the Seattle grunge veneer to become a corporate behemoth antithetical in every way to the spirit of nonconformity and rebelliousness that the American coffee shop came to define in the 1960s.