Opinion · 1 October 2026

The Starbucks syndrome: can we really live without it?

A familiar logo offers certainty. The more interesting question is what a coffee stop contributes to a place.

The appeal of a chain is easy to understand. You recognise the menu before entering, know roughly how the order will work and can make a quick decision in an unfamiliar place. Starbucks grew from a Seattle coffee retailer founded in 1971 into a coffeehouse business shaped by Howard Schultz's experience of Italian cafés. Its own account describes the café as a social space between home and work.

That idea deserves more attention than the logo. A good island coffee stop can also be a place to slow down, ask a question, watch the street and return the next day. Locality alone does not guarantee a good cup or good service; a global name does not automatically erase the life around it. The choice is less a moral test than a question of what kind of encounter you want.

On Mykonos, our preference is to leave room for an unfamiliar counter. Look at the coffee menu, ask what is being served and notice whether the space works for the time you have. Convenience has value. So does discovering a place you could not have found in every other destination. This is an editorial view, not a claim that one operator is objectively better than another.