Einstein Bro's Bagels opened in Lubbock today, and you'd think Robert Pattinson made a return trip to Crickett's. You know your town is located in the center of the universe when stories of mediocre bagel shops opening fill more corridors than Ron Jerem...forget that thought.
I'm not trying to knock Einstein Bro's. It's better than a lot of breakfast places around Lubbock. I mean hell, they serve Lox sandwiches, which was enough to make me drag my ass in there at 7:00 o'clock this morning. And I have to give them credit, it was a mighty fine slab of smoked salmon on my pumpernickel bagel (yeah, I keep it kosher for my non-gentile bruhs).
The coffee-shop culture of Seattle birthed the over-priced coffee giant, Starbucks. The bagel shop culture of New York inspired (but did not create) Einstein Bros. A lot of people knock Starbucks for attempting to engineer culture from coffee, and by doing so on a massive scale - the antithesis of what a coffee shop is "supposed" to be.
Sidenote: I could give two shits about which coffee shop I go to, and which crowd it attracts. I wake up in the morning and need caffeine, and my motor systems in conjunction with my neurological lead me to my fix.
Starbucks gets props for its inclusion of its customers into its workings through social media. They allow users in the online community to have a say in products offered and promotional deals amongst other things.
Bagel shops and coffee shops have one things in common: they cater to a very niche market, so their customers have created a microcosm around the food and/or beverage.
Einstein Bro's came along in 2006, long after Starbucks had the coffee industry by the groin. Still, their attempts at replicating Starbuck's goals prove feeble. There is NO online community, and their online storefront is lackluster to say the least.
In a day and age where social media is growing more and more prevalent, it seems absurd for a company that sells a very specific product, or provides a narrowly-tailored service to ignore the wants and needs of its consumers. It's proven effective with Starbucks, Dell and Mountain Dew, so it's definitely possible with Einstein Bros.
They don't even have day-old dozen bagel specials.
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